


A doorway

by Eatgreass



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Canon Asexual Character, Canon Divergence, F/F, Hunt!Basira, I misremebered a part of canon so just ignore that when melanie shows up, SO much wlw pining content here, Spiral Avatar Sasha James, Spiral!Sasha, dark!Tim, desolation!Basira, if you're looking for sasha and helen content youre in the right place!, if youre looking for a fix it look somewhere else, ill put tws at the beginning of each chapter if there are any, lonley!tim, not exactly a fix it, not mentioned but its important to ME
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-04
Updated: 2021-01-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:40:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 58
Words: 83,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25709095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eatgreass/pseuds/Eatgreass
Summary: Sasha gets taken by the distortion instead of the stranger. But this time she comes back.
Relationships: Basira Hussain & Alice "Daisy" Tonner, Basira Hussain & Melanie King, Georgie Barker & Melanie King & Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Georgie Barker/Melanie King (background), Jude Perry & Basira Hussain, Martin Blackwood & Sasha James, Martin Blackwood & Sasha James & Tim Stoker, Martin Blackwood & Tim Stoker, Martin Blackwood/ Jonathan Sims | the archivist (background), Melanie King & Tim Stoker, Michael "Mike" Crew & Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Sasha James & Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist & Tim Stoker, Sasha James & Michael | The Distortion, Sasha James & Tim Stoker, Sasha James/Helen Richardson, sasha james/the distortion
Comments: 143
Kudos: 118





	1. A graveyard

It started with a strange man that Sasha saw buying coffee. He looked creepy in the way of “His hands in the reflection were larger than his torso, and his eyes were all fucked up”, but he didn’t look creepy in the typical creepy man way, so Sasha thought that meant he was good enough to talk to, but she had to get to work. She saw the strange man in a cafe again, but she was in a hurry. Third time's the charm, because she saw him in the cafe again after work, and  _ that  _ time she stopped to talk. 

Kind of an ass, he was, when she finally got introduced. Michael. Much too cryptic, and Sasha didn’t have the patience for that. He asked her to meet him in a graveyard if she wanted more information. It was stupid, but she really  _ did _ want to know more, and to banish all doubt, and let her know that he was truly  _ something, _ he put his hand in hers. It felt like a bag of wet sand, much heavier than it should have been and strangely rough in texture.

So there she stood, at midnight, at the gate to a graveyard, like some stupid horror movie girl. She stood there long enough that she began to entertain the idea that he simply wanted to scare her. Then, Michael appeared. He looked at her with a smirk, not saying anything, and led her down an alley. Really, it was an awful decision to make, but she followed him down the alley, not questioning his motives.

The worms. Oh damn, the worms. More than Sasha could handle, and certainly more than she’d ever seen inside the institute. Sasha liked to think of herself as a fearless woman, but there was one thing she hated, and that was being overwhelmed. She was brave, but more than anything, she needed to be in control, and that many worms without any fire extinguishers? She was anything but in control, and she desperately tried to beat them all off as Michael, the fucker, stood on watching as if she was nothing more than an interesting television program, and he was betting on the winner.

She briefly hoped he was betting on her, but what did that matter? She was going to die. She was going to die, and he was going to watch her die. She looked around, for something, anything that could help her survive the mess she was in. There was a bright red fire extinguisher on her right, and she grabbed for it and sprayed at the figure in the midst of the worms. There were so many, so many worms, but somehow there was enough foam left in the fire extinguisher to engulf the writhing figure until it fell to the floor with a wet thump. 

It was disgusting, but Sasha was already coated in sweat and damp rot, so what did it matter? She went through the creatures pockets to find some semblance of an answer. “Just like research,” she thought as she held her breath and reached into the slime. When her hands emerged victorious holding the drivers license, her heart stopped. Timothy Hodge. The man from statement #0140912. The man with the worm sex. 

“Gross,” Sasha thought. She didn’t want to remember him as the worm sex man, but here he was, a mess of worms. He kind of deserved that title.

She looked up to find Michael standing over her, holding a small, silver worm in his abnormally long hands. 

‘You dropped this,” he told her.

It was only then that she noticed the hole that the worm had crawled through in her upper arm. She hadn’t felt the worm go in, and she hadn’t felt his fingers peel into her veins. “Something is very, very wrong,” was her last thought before her eyes rolled up in her head, and she faded out of consciousness for the night. 

\---

Sasha woke up in her bed, utterly alone, which was somewhat concerning. Who had put her there? What had happened? In fact, she would have dismissed it as a dream for the sake of her own sanity, if she hadn’t found the small hole just below her shoulder. Sasha sighed. She needed to make a statement, and she just  _ knew  _ how Jon, skeptic extraordinaire, would react. 

Sasha brushed her teeth, showered and got dressed quickly. One of the nice things about having an assistant living at the archives was that you could get in any time you needed. Of course, Jon basically lived in the archives as well, so it wasn’t that much different having Martin live there.

When she got there, she found Martin asleep on the cot in the back room. She felt a bit bad about having to wake him up, but after the worms, she was sure he, at least, would help her make a statement.

“Hey,” she said, gently shaking him.

“Sasha?”

“Yeah, sorry about waking you up.”

“No, no, it’s fine!” He rubbed at his eyes and looked up at her. “Why are you here so early?”

“Oh, um, I need to make a statement. Do you know where Jon is?”

Martin pointed at Jon’s office. There was a man still asleep at the desk. “I feel a little bit bad about taking his sleeping space,” Martin said ruefully.

“He’s the one that gave it to you.”

“Good point,” Martin said. “He’s still going to put his back out if he sleeps at his desk too much, though.”

“Martin, you were trapped in your apartment for two weeks by  _ worms.  _ We want you to be safe here, and Jon’s still in his twenties. He’ll be fine.” 

“Twenties-? He told me he was nearly  _ forty! _ ” 

“Twenty-nine.” Sasha paused. “If he sleeps at his desk this often, he can handle being woken up by a statement giver.” 

She still felt bad about it.

She shook him awake gently, though he bolted upright with the touch. 

“What? Did I-” He sighed. “Yeah.”

“Damn Jon, get a better sleep schedule.”

“It is very much noted that all of my assistants enjoy prying into my personal habits.”

Sasha rolled her eyes. Always the professional. 

“I want to give a statement.”

He clicked on the tape recorder. “Seriously?”

“Yes.”

“Only crackpots, frauds, and-”

“Jonathan Sims, are you calling me a crackpot?”

“Well no, but-”

“We’ve been seeing these damn worms for weeks on end, and you still think this is all nonsense?”

Jon sighed, and clicked on the tape recorder. “Statement of Sasha James, Archival assistant at the Magnus institute, regarding…?”

“A series of paranormal encounters.”

“Statement begins.”

\----

“Statement ends.”

“Right.”

Jon looked at her. “You met a strange man at midnight in a graveyard, and you  _ didn’t  _ expect anything to happen?”

“I didn’t expect  _ that  _ to happen.”

“Right.” There was a pause. “Oh, and- can you follow up on statement #0020312? I gave it to Martin, and you know how he is.”

“I do, and he’s actually quite good at archiving. You know, he worked in the library before his transfer to the archives, so it makes sense that the research doesn’t come as naturally to him.”

Jon huffed.

“And I was planning on following up case #0140912. I know we closed it up, but I figured after seeing dear Mr. Hodge last night, there might be something more to the story.”

Jon conceded the point, and she left the office. 

“You know, most archives don’t even do research,” she thought. 


	2. An Attack

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sasha finds a door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings for WORMS

ll the rest of her day at work, Sasha couldn’t stop thinking about the strange man she’d given a statement about. Not in a romantic way, but simply because it was such an odd encounter. She couldn’t help but think that there was something more to him, that he was somehow connected to the whole web the archives were trapped in.

First it was worms, slowly invading the archives, and driving Martin out of his flat. Then it was the strangest man she had met in her life. 

Sasha leaned back in her chair. Fifteen minutes until lunch, and she could spend a blissful hour  _ not  _ thinking about the paranormal shit she was researching.

That was until she heard a scream and a loud thud from Jon’s office. Sasha sighed and went to investigate, thinking maybe he had dropped a shelf on himself, overestimating his own strength, or maybe there was a spider, or some tapes had fallen and needed to be re-filed.

To her credit, it  _ was  _ a spider, but behind the spider were a  _ lot  _ of worms.

“Jon!”

“There was a spider, and I was trying-” he took a deep breath. “Worms.”

“No shit!”

“Where’s Martin?”

Sasha tried to gather herself, and said, “I think he’s in the back room. We’ll be safest there.”

They ran.

Martin was understandably confused when the two of them rushed madly into his room and dead bolted the door. Jon’s brisk sentences didn’t help at all, and it only became clear to him when Prentiss appeared outside the door.

“Fuck,” Sasha breathed. Then, as if out of a trance, “Where’s Tim?”

“On lunch,” Jon said. 

“He doesn’t know about the worms,” Martin said a beat later.

“We have to warn him!” 

“ We can’t leave the room,” Jon said.

“So what? We can’t leave him to die!”

“There he is,” Martin said.

Jon and Sasha turned to look through the window on the door. Prentiss was right behind him, and he was completely oblivious to the entire situation. 

“Tim!”

“Tim! Look behind you!”

“He can’t hear you!”

“He has to!”

Sasha abruptly ended the conversation by unlocking the door and running full speed towards Tim. 

“Statement of Joe Spooky, regarding sinister happenings-” 

Sasha collided with him. 

They smashed a truly  _ astounding  _ number of worms when they hit the floor, but there was no victory in that when Jane Prentiss immediately began to encroach on them. They screamed and untangled their limbs, and ran in tandem. 

In different directions.

Tim ran into Jon’s office, and Sasha ran towards the fire escape, up towards Elias’s office with the desperate hope that their boss could do something. 

“Tim is dead. Tim is dead. Tim is dead,” pounded inside of Sasha’s head as she ran to Elias’s office. She ignored the creeping thoughts, the terror, and the shock. She could have her mental breakdown after she got out of the building. Hopefully without being dragged away in a body bag.

He was doing paperwork. The bastard had completely ignored the fire alarm she had pulled on her way up, and was sitting inside his office looking through the payroll. He had turned off the alarm inside his office, so it was the only room in the institute quiet in the midst of the panic.

“Elias!”

Elias looked up at her. “Yes?” He asked.

“ _ Worms,”  _ Sasha said, panting.

“I don’t understand.”

“The worms are invading the archives,” Sasha growled. “The ones we’ve been seeing for  _ weeks  _ finally decided to come into the light.”

“Attacking?”

“Yes,” Sasha said. “Did you not know? The worms are trying to  _ kill  _ us.”

“I may have… misjudged the threat level.” 

Sasha would have  _ loved  _ to have a nice chat with her boss about why he didn’t believe the archival staff when they said that there was a plague of worms, but she had bigger fish to fry. “Why isn’t the fire suppression system working?” She asked.

“There isn’t a fire,” Elias said blankly.

“I pulled the alarm!”

“But there’s not a fire,” Elias said. “I suppose we’ll have to manually activate the fire suppression system.”

“Great, how do we do that?” Sasha paused. “And will that hurt the others?”

“Oh, certainly,” Elias said. “Sodium Bicarbonate isn’t known to be good for human lungs, and your friends are still very much trapped in the lowest part of the building.”

“And you aren’t worried about killing them?”

“Oh.” Elias looked disappointed. “I really don’t want to hire another Archivist this soon. Do we have any other options?”

“No, I suppose. We’ll just have to hope they got out of that room.”

Elias paused. “The fire suppression system is on the second floor.”

“Well, I suppose death would be better than becoming a flesh hive.”

“Agreed.”

“Run, then.”

Sasha bolted out of Elias’s office, running for the stairs on the left side of the building, while he ran towards the other stairs. Her path was quicker, but his had less worms. 

She could only hope that he made his way to the manual release of the fire suppression, because she slipped on the worm-covered stairs, landing painfully in another hallway. The hallway was also filled with worms, but unlike the other hallways, there weren’t any fire extinguishers nearby. That meant that there was nothing to do but run.

That  _ helplessness  _ again. There was nothing she could do for herself, and nothing she could do for her friends. They were in the archives, and she was on the third floor, near… oh shit. 

_ Oh shit.  _

Artifact storage. She was standing only a few paces from the door to artifact storage, a room she knew to be one of the most secure rooms inside the building from outside threats. It kept in what was meant to be inside, and more importantly for her, it kept out what could contaminate the items. There were worms everywhere, chasing her, jumping at her, and nearly anything was better than becoming a flesh hive, so what was she to do?

She ran through the door, and locked it. All three locks, and some sort of stained blanket pushed under the door to stop any worms from getting through. She would have sighed in relief, had she not been in the room that housed her worst nightmares. 

Three months in artifact storage had done nothing but give her paranoia, and she wasn’t going to let down her guard simply because the dangers she saw were dealt with. 

She knew she had made the right decision to stay on guard when she heard the voice. 

“Sa-sha,” came from somewhere around the shelves in an eerily echoing, sing-song voice.

“Who are you?”

The tape recorder clicked on.

She shined her torch through the isles, looking for… she didn’t know. A person looking to give someone a scare, maybe? She hoped it was only that, even as she knew it was something much, much worse.

“Sa-sha!” Came again from the shelves behind her.

She whipped around. “I see you!” 

There was an ear-piercing, deafening laugh. 

“No. No, you don’t see it.” 

“Michael!” She shuddered at his strange appearance, where he was standing inside the threshold of the door. “What are you- why are you- what happened?”

“You have a choice this time, assistant.”

“What?”

“Stranger or Spiral, as Dekker would have put it.”

Sasha stared at the creature before her. 

“Pick your poison, I suppose. But I would pick quickly. Soon your choice will be replaced with inevitability, and I  _ do  _ hate inevitability.”

Sasha looked to her left, the bright yellow door standing before her. She looked to her right, where the skin creature with appendages far too long and stiff stood. 

She closed her eyes.

She said her prayers.

She picked her poison. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hmm... wonder how this will impact the others relationships...


	3. A candle for the dead

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Sasha is well and truly gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tw for death, grieving, emergency medical treatment, Elias because I feel like that should be a content warning all on its own, and worms.

“Where are the rest of my team?”

“Sir, sir. Please sit down. We need to check you over.”

“I’m bloody  _ fine!”  _ Jon said. “Where’s my team?”

The emergency doctor sighed. “If I tell you, will you stay still?”

“ _ fine.” _

“One of your colleagues, the tall one with dyed red hair, is in quarantine. He’ll be getting out soon, as he seems to be uncontaminated.”

“Tim,” Jon confirmed. “Martin?” 

“The nervous man with the corkscrew is being questioned by police.”

“What?” Jon jumped up. “Why? He didn’t do anything, let me see him-”

“I need you to stay  _ still,  _ sir.” 

“Martin didn’t do anything wrong, if anything-”

“He’s not under suspicion. The police simply need him to give a statement. Please stay still.”

Jon visibly relaxed, sitting back down on the back of the truck. “Oh. Okay, then.”

There was a pause.

“And Sasha?” Jon asked.

There was a longer pause.

“Where is Sasha?”

“We are…” The medical professional started.

“ _ Tell me.” _

“We are unable to locate her as of now.”

Jon began struggling to stand up again. “Sasha was- Sasha is- What do you  _ mean  _ you’re unable to locate her?” He asked. 

“If you do not stay still, we will have to sedate you in order to check you over. I understand you’re in shock right now, but-”

“What do you mean she’s gone?” Jon interrupted.

“Sir, you aren’t in a state to-”

“Where. Is. Sasha.” 

This time, the doctor answered the question. “There is no evidence of a fight.” He said. “No body was found.”

“You’re saying-” Jon started,

“She was most likely consumed by the worms in the archives,” the doctor finished.

“No! She was  _ not  _ eaten by worms, she was  _ not!” _

“Sir, you aren’t well enough to-”

“She is  _ not  _ dead!” Jon tried to push past the doctor, but exhausted and weak as he was, the doctor was easily able to hold him down.

“Sir, please be still.”

“How can you expect me to be  _ calm  _ when you are telling me my  _ friend  _ is dead.”

“Go home. Rest. Please.”

“I need to take statements,” Jon said quietly.

\---

“Statement of Elias Bouchard, regarding the infestation of the Magnus Institute by the entity formerly known as Jane Prentiss.” 

Elias sighed. “Do we really have to do this now, Jon? You’re ill, you just got attacked by worms, and you already have the tapes you made during the invasion. Isn’t this unnecessary?”

“I may have… lost some of the tapes.”

“Ah.”

“So I just need your experience up from when you got separated from- from when you left your office. “

“Well, Sasha came up to my office to alert me about the worm situation in the Archives, and we came to the conclusion that the only way to stop the worms was to choke them out with the sodium bicarbonate in the fire extinguishers. I ran one way, and Sasha ran the other. As you know, the emergency fire suppression system is on the second floor, and my office is on the third. There was no time for Sasha or me to turn around and go the same direction, so we continued. I assumed that we would meet up at the fire suppression system, but I didn’t see her after that point, and I was very preoccupied with manually activating the system. Is that all you need?”

“What did you do after you got out of the building?”

“I went to check on my employees, obviously. I was given information that you, Martin, and Tim were shaken but otherwise unharmed, and Sasha was thankfully the only person that was killed in the worm attack. After learning your whereabouts, I was asked by the police to give a statement on the attack and explain what had happened. I did so, and at that point I was free to leave.”

Jon took a shaky breath. “And… That’s all?”

“Yes. Now, I would appreciate it if you would stop exerting yourself and  _ go home,  _ Jon.”

“I just need to take Tim and Martin’s statement.”

\----

“Statement of Timothy Stoker, regarding the infestation of the Magnus Institute by the entity formerly known as Jane Prentiss.”

Jon nodded. “Begin.”

“You were  _ there,  _ you saw it all. I’m tired, Jon.”

“I know. I just need the parts that we lost the tapes for.”

Tim glared at Jon. “And then I get to go home?”

“Yes, Tim.”

“Alright.” Tim sighed. “When I got separated from you, when I ran into the office and Sa-, well anyway, I ran into your office, there were a  _ lot  _ of worms. I fell down, actually, into a box or tapes, and there were a bunch of fire extinguishers just sitting there, so I gassed the worms, and ran into the tunnels. Everything went a bit hazy then, since I inhaled quite a bit of gas. Is that good enough for you, Jon?”

“I just need what happened when we got separated for the second time, that's all. I promise.”

“Fine. I ran into a room, and there was a giant mass of worms, all squirming in tandem. It looked like- like a doorway. So I emptied two fire extinguishers into it, and ran. I got out of the building after wandering the tunnels for quite a while, and yeah. That’s it.” Tim ran his hand through his hair, looking absolutely exhausted. “If I'd've gone upstairs, if I’d’ve just done  _ something…”  _ He looked up. “I’m going home.” 

“Get some rest, Tim.”

\---

“Statement of-” Jon sighed. “Martin Blackwood, regarding the infestation of the Magnus Institute by the entity formerly known as Jane Prentiss. 

“Jon? Didn’t you get this on tape already?”

“I lost some of the tapes, as I’ve said before.”

“Oh- right. Well- where do you want me to start?”

“From when you got separated from me and Tim in the tunnels.”

“Right, so I think I made a wrong turn at one of the forks in the tunnel, and I got separated from you and Tim. I wandered around a bit, until I got mostly out of institute tunnels. I mean- I didn’t  _ know  _ that I was out of the tunnels underneath the institute, but the tunnels got less and less worm filled, and there was more and more garbage inside of them I mean, who was eating packaged oreos down there? There was a  _ lot  _ of litter, and -”

“ _ Martin.” _

“Right, right, sorry. So eventually I was able to find my way back the tunnels under the institute- I knew I was back because there were a lot of worm corpses all strewn around, and it was starting to smell a bit like rot-

“Martin.”

“Yes! Anyway I wandered into a room off the side of the… hallways, I guess? And there was a dead body inside.”

“Gertrude’s body?”

“Yeah. I was quite freaked out, so I left and eventually found my way back out, where the police questioned me about her death, and the tunnels under the institute, and-”

“How did she die, Martin?”

“Well, the police said that it could have been anything, she died a long time ago, and bodies don’t hold up well, especially in the tunnels, because it was so humid-”

“How. Did. Gertrude. Robinson. Die.”

“She was  _ shot.”  _

Jon looked at Martin quizzically. 

“Three times. In the chest.”

Martin sighed. “Is that all? Can I go now?”

“Yes. Yes, you can.”

\---

She was  _ shot.  _ It wasn’t just that some doddering old lady cracked her head open, or didn’t wake up one day, Gertrude Robinson got shot. That meant two things. One: She wasn’t nearly as incompetent as Jon previously thought she was. Somebody must have wanted her dead for a reason. Two: Somebody shot her. And who would want to kill the Archivist?

That was the question rattling around in Jon’s brain. Because if somebody wanted to kill Gertrude, they probably already had their eye on him. He clicked his tape recorder on. 

“If you are listening to this, I am dead. Sa- The archives have already lost one assistant, and you- whoever is listening to this needs to know that my death was not incidental. Somebody was trying to kill my predecessor, if you are listening to this, they found me, and now they are trying to kill you.”

Jon switched off the tape recorder and popped a new tape into the recorder. Something about vocalizing his thoughts always made it easier to deal with them. First, he needed to go through the list of suspects. “My first suspect,” Jon said, “Is Timothy Stoker. He is another Archival assistant at the Magnus institute, and was very close with Sa- our other assistant. He is on the suspect list because I believe that it was somebody in the archives that killed Gertrude, although after… previous events, I doubt he would be the one to kill her.”

“My second suspect is Martin Blackwood. Previously, I would have assumed him too much of a dolt to be capable of murdering the archivist, but during the worm attack he showed an incredible amount of knowledge. Perhaps he was merely faking incompetence in order to lure the rest of us into a false sense of security. Besides, he found the body in the tunnels, perhaps meaning that he knew where it was before. He is my prime suspect.

“My third and final suspect is the head of the institute, Elias Bouchard. It would have been easier than most for him to kill Gertrude and hide her in the tunnels, which he would have access to. However, he did not demonstrate that he knew much about what was going on in the archives, as it was his incompetence that got Sa-  _ Sasha  _ killed. Perhaps this means that he was behind the murder, but I personally believe that he is nothing more than a man who wants to save on costs and disregards safety in the process.”

Jon took a deep breath, and switched the tape recorder off. 

Then he started crying. 

Jon was not a loud crier, and he didn’t cry often. But here, in the safety of his own home, he was allowed to be miserable. Greedy, egotistical, that’s what he was. The tears were as much borne from grief as borne from self loathing. He wanted Sasha back, he wanted her back more than he had wanted anything but even as he thought that, he knew it was because he missed her. And wasn’t that some kind of selfish?

He just hoped her death had been quick. 

Jon cried for exactly ten minutes before composing himself, and doing something he had only done for one other person in his life. His grandmother. He went down to  _ her  _ church, his grandmothers, and lit a candle for Sasha. He whispered a prayer he didn’t believe in, and thought about how she was gone, but not forgotten. He would give her one last thing, and that was his memory. 

Sasha died alone, but she didn’t have to stay alone. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heyyy, so if you know me irl you've heard me bitch to hell and back about my joints, anyway its actually gotten bad enough that its somewhat painful to type. I have about four chapters almost ready to post, so I'm gonna try to update regularly, but I can't promise anything if my fingers continue to be as fucked up as they've been for the last two days. Good news is I have a doctors appointment scheduled about that now though. Anyway, those are my excuses if this abruptly stops updating for a week or two.


	4. An Unreality

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sasha is trapped.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Typical tws for the spiral, unreality, confusion,ect.

Stepping into the door was like stepping out of a window. She was falling, falling, falling, but twisting, and somersaulting, and all of a sudden, it stopped. Like she had hit the pavement, only she was standing upright in a corridor. 

A neon hotel corridor. 

Weird.

“Okay,” Sasha thought, “There’s a way out of here, I just need to find it.” After all, person after person were lost inside the Minotaur's labyrinth, but there was always a way out, no matter how hard it was to find the end of the maze. She needed her ball of string, that was the problem. 

First things first, this place had to have rules. Sasha didn’t believe that she needed food nor sleep, a hypothesis, but a simple one to test. If she got tired or hungry, she’d know she needed those essentials, and then? Maybe she’d die, or maybe there would be a buffet table behind one of the doors, but either way, it was out of her control.

Next, she knew that she had walked through one of the doors so, logically, there had to be another door to the outside world. The question was which was the right one, and she had fallen, so the door must be above her. A quick check revealed that there was nothing above her but a garish chandelier. The walls of the corridor were lined with doors, and one of them must lead somewhere useful, so her next problem was recognizing which doors she had already opened. If she scratched an X on the ones she had been through, that would eliminate possibilities, and soon enough she would be free. Easy as pie. Easy as pie. 

She stepped through the first door. Green and moldy with an ornate door knob that opened at her touch, it didn’t lead anywhere. One second she was stepping through the threshold, and the next second she was in a room of kaleidoscopes, no door in sight.

In fact, the room was devoid of all doors and windows, and the only moving things in the room were the slowly rotating spirals. 

That wasn’t right, that  _ couldn’t  _ be right. She went in somewhere, she had to come out somewhere. Was there somebody else operating the doors? Was their portal technology that she didn’t yet understand? How could a door disappear? She hammered on the wall, yelling and screaming until her fists ached and her voice was hoarse. She turned around, and she was in a different corridor, a slowly curving one that she couldn’t see the end of with walls swimming in stripes and patterns that made her head hurt. Was it all an optical illusion? That would make sense, if there was somehow a type of projector that was showing her different things in order to mess with her. Perhaps she hadn’t walked through a door at all, and was merely in a blank white room with things being shown to her. 

The walls were quite solid, and the doors quite real. When she couldn’t believe her eyes, her hands and ears told her that her new world was not a trick. If she closed her eyes, everything sounded shrill and muddy and the walls were never there. For every one of her senses that worked properly, there were two others that told her not to believe a thing the hell she was in showed her.

And she could never find the doors that she marked a second time.

Was it minutes? Was it years? Time was difficult in the shifting palace of neon, and any attempts to quantify her world like she had done when things had been real fell flat. Nothing  _ worked.  _ Even physics roamed free here, with nothing to obey but the shrill keening laughter of something just beyond a door she could never find. She never even knew if she needed food or water, because she had  _ no idea  _ how long she had been roaming the halls, and sometimes she was starving, but others she felt like thanksgiving dinner had just come.

She spent a lot of time in her newfound prison curled in a ball with her eyes closed and her ears covered and everything stopped, just so she could gain some semblance of normality, even if that normality came in the form of a panic attack. It never worked, because her tears would fall upwards and gravity would cease to exist and her eyes would fly wide to see a void that she could never catch again. She caught an eye watching her once in a while, one with unnatural irises, and mirth swirling inside of them. 

So if nothing else, she had one fact to keep her sane. She was a mouse caught in a maze. The only reason she wasn’t dead yet was because she cared. She hadn’t given up yet, and it was amusing to somebody, and so she was kept alive until she lost hope. Ironically, that fact was what gave her the most hope. As long as she kept her belief that she could find her way out of the door, the Minotaur inside the maze didn’t want to gut her. 

But she wasn't a mouse in a maze, no, she was a mouse in the belly of an anaconda. She was half gone already, her sanity digested by acid and her will about to be eaten and digested by a creature that was just  _ waiting  _ for her to stop squirming inside its stomach. Death was only inevitable, because she was already in the belly of the thing that had taken her. 

Denial and hope can be the same thing sometimes, and Sasha stubbornly held onto both.

So every day, or what passed for one, she roamed the corridors and she searched the hallways and she braved the motion sickness she got just from walking around the damn hallways, because she might be able to find an exit, or somebody else, or maybe she could find the thing that took her, and give it a piece of her mind, and a swing of her fist before she was completely gone.

She was beginning to understand that her logic didn’t work in this place, but even though deep down, she knew that nothing was real and her world was missing, Sasha was stubborn and resilient and she was going to fucking make sure that everybody knew Sasha James would die before giving up. And if dying and giving up were synonymous, well, she guessed she wouldn’t be doing either anytime soon. 

She wanted to find somebody. She  _ needed  _ somebody in this world to keep her sane, or let her know that it was okay, or even just somebody to share the misery with. Maybe she simply didn’t want to die alone. Solitude makes humans go mad, and Sasha was already half mad. She needed to share her madness with another person. 

Maybe it was her wish and the world provided for her, or maybe it was just a cruel coincidence, but inside of a bright yellow door tucked into a claustrophobic corridor, she found company.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Slaps the roof of the spiral* This baby can hold so many parallels to greek mythology in it
> 
> Also on another note, I did slightly change up the tags of the story as I developed how I'm going to do the plot, so I'd check to see if it's still something you're interested in reading.


	5. A Breaking Point

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we get a bit of Tim and Martin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Watch Tim be sad!

Fuck the Magnus Institute, and fuck the worms, and fuck everything in this whole damn shitty world.

Tim wanted to break himself open in a rage, and he wanted to  _ hurt,  _ and he wanted to feel anything at all. He had already ripped his table into pieces, and his hands were full of splinters and jagged cuts and blood. He was going at his dresser now. A broken foot can leave a miraculous amount of dents in a mahogany dresser, and filled with rage and grief and adrenaline like Tim was, nothing hurt as much as it should have.

That was a problem for Tim. His face was red and tear streaked and twisted into a grimace of pain. His hands were beaten and bloody and his bones broken and fractured. He didn’t care. He wanted to  _ hurt,  _ the same way that she had hurt when she died.

Tim liked to think that he wasn’t a violent guy. And he wasn’t,  _ really.  _ He didn’t hurt people, he gave off a charismatic air that let people know he was friendly, and he  _ never _ used his size to intimidate.

So that’s why he was in his apartment, breaking things and hating himself for wanting to tear the world apart. 

She had been his best friend. They had been together through everything, good and bad. Sasha had been Tim’s favorite person in the world, the only one who knew about Danny, the person who had stuck with him through thick and thin. He was lost. He was lost, and so he was sitting in his apartment, breaking himself like some sad, fucked up teenager with anger issues. 

He sat down on the floor of his apartment, curled in a ball, and he cried. He fell asleep like that, curled in on his broken joints, face streaked with tears and sweat and snot, trying to forget everything that had happened. 

And when he woke up in the worst pain of his life, the adrenaline having worn off and left nothing but his shattered frame, he had nobody to call.

Everybody he cared about was  _ dead.  _ That’s what he did to people, that’s what happened when people were friends with Timothy Fucking Stoker. They died. First Danny, now Sasha. He had nobody to help him, and he didn’t want to face anybody right now. Like this.

That’s where he was. Mentally calculating what to do, who to call, if he even wanted to bother somebody else that would die because of him, when he heard the knock on his door. 

“Fuck off,” He yelled. 

The knock came again.

“Are you a bloody idiot? I said  _ fuck off.” _

“Tim?”

“Get the fuck out of here, Martin.”

“Sorry, you just didn’t show up to work today, and with Prentiss, I was worried that something got you, and so I came just to check- Can you unlock the door, please?”

Tim weighed his options. On one hand, he was still very much laying on the floor covered in blood, but on the other had, he was still very much laying on the floor covered in blood. 

“Fuck  _ off,  _ Martin.” Damn. The sob in his voice betrayed him. 

“... Tim?”

“Martin, please accept that I don’t want your sympathy. So you can kindly fuck off, and go spend your day consoling your big gay crush that oh,  _ hates your guts.” _

Martin’s reply came more measured. “Tim, maybe  _ I  _ need to talk to  _ you.  _ Maybe it’s for me.”

Tim rolled over on his carpet. “Great. You can rest assured, I’m alive.”

“Tim? Can I talk to you?” Martin paused. “Please?”

Tim groaned and unlocked the door. 

“Ti-  _ Damn,  _ Tim.”

Martin grabbed him by the arms and dragged him over to the couch. 

Tim was glad to have a friend watching him but at the same time, he was utterly humiliated and angry that someone had seen him like this. At his worst, out of his mind, covered in his own blood from stupid,  _ stupid  _ mistakes he had made. 

Martin sat in silence cleaning Tim’s wounds, and pulling out his splinters, and occasionally feeling for broken bones. Tim was glad for the silence. He didn’t want to talk about the damn elephant in the room. 

He did, however, want to talk about Sasha. Just not her end.

“One time,” He began. Martin looked up. “Sasha and I were in our first year at the institute. She joined three months before me and I guess she was trying to help me make friends? Anyway, she decided that she was going to make sure I saw the institute. I remember her exact words. ‘I’m going to show you the creepiest place in this shithole.’” Tim snorted at the memory. She didn’t take me down to the main area of artifact storage, said later that she wouldn’t send her worst enemy there, but she showed me the bookshelves. Made me vow to to touch any of them before she took me into the room. I was all caught up in the spookiness factor that I didn’t even think about where we were going, but she took me past the shelves into this old dilapidated closet with a chair and table and one of those lights you only see in creepy old garages. She pulled out a bag of pringles and told me some shit like, I dunno, you have to eat every single chip in the package or the head of the institute dies. We ate every pringle but the last one. We left that one on the floor and stamped on it. Sasha told me disrespecting Elias was a right of passage but I think she was just mad she didn’t get the promotion she’d been asking for, despite the fact that she was over qualified for the job, if anything.”

Martin joined in then. “On my first day at the institute, the one where I accidentally let the dog down into the archives, Sasha was the first to catch me chasing it. She told me it was now an official member of the Archives team, and we had to name it accordingly. I think she named it Gertrude, in loving memory, etcetera, etcetera. That whole thing, and she insisted that I referred to him by his proper title, lest we offend him. She tried to get the dog to go into Jon’s office before I was able to convince you to help me catch it because Jon was rather upset about the whole thing, but Sasha was the best sport about it. She was-” Martin looked down, “She was really, really  _ good.” _

__

“Yeah. Yeah, she was the best.”

“I’m sorry, Tim.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hmm I've written up to chapter 17, just need to do some proofreading this weekend. I've used this fic to procrastinate my macbeth fic and starting human anatomy work, so yay, it'll probably update fairly regularly. (Think weekly, but no promises)  
> I'm starting school in a week and honestly it's a tossup as to whether it will give me more or less time, since it means I go back to working part time.


	6. A house for sale

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We meet Helen!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope you enjoy finally meeting helen! shes great!
> 
> Tws for this chapter are just general spiral madness stuff.

Helen didn’t like selling houses. She lived in a too-small flat with a strict no pets policy, and she couldn’t give a damn about who wanted to buy which mansion next. 

But this,  _ this  _ was the strangest house she had seen in her life. 

It didn’t help when the person she was selling to was unequivocally one of the oddest people she’d ever met. He (?) had long blonde hair, and a piercing smile that just  _ had  _ to be for show. He refused to shake her hand, as well. She would have thought he was just being rude, if anything else about him was even close to normal. Work was work however, and she went into her normal spiel about the benefits of buying a house as large as this, without delving into any of the messier details of upkeep or of just how  _ hard  _ it would to to get back into the village after settling in.

The person didn’t seem to be listening like her other clients did, and for some reason, that annoyed Helen. 

No matter how inane and tedious her job was, at least people listened to her. But this man seemed more interested in the cracks in the drywall and the doors in the rooms than listening to anything she had to say. She tried to engage him, told him about the lacquer on the door frames, and the color paints that had been used, but he paid her no notice. It was getting on her nerves, not to be listened to.

That’s why she was so glad when she finally got to the end of the tour.

“And here’s the last bedroom. You’ll notice that the walls are painted a lovely dull lavender, and…” She trailed off. 

There was a  _ door  _ right next to the bedside table. This room was quaint, it was simple. She was certain there hadn’t been a closet there before. She looked at the man- Mi- Mickey? It started with an “M,” that she was sure of.

He smiled at her. 

She didn't smile back.

“And that’s it. The end of the tour. I hope you consider buying the house, bye.” She tried to walk away from the cursed room, but there he was. (“Michael!”) Blocking her path out. 

“What about that door?” He asked innocently. 

She floundered. “Just a closet, I’m sure. You could repaint it easily if you think it to be an eyesore.”

She tried to walk out once more, but Michael smiled at her with teeth too sharp to be human, and asked her again what was behind the door. 

She looked him square in the eye. “I don’t know.”

“Do you want to find out?”

“No,” she thought.

“Yes,” she said. 

Without meaning to, her hand moved towards the black handle on the door. She opened it, and all of a sudden she was inside. A dirty green hallway with mirrors on every side and no end in sight. There continued to be no end in sight, as she walked for three days in the never ending hallway. As she walked, it changed and shifted into pinks and purples and yellows and colors that she hadn’t seen before in her life. She was tired. She was lost. She wanted to leave. In a fit of wild rage she kicked open a mirror, and fell through onto a hard gravel street, mirror or door or hallway nowhere to be seen. Then she passed out. She spent three days in the hospital on an IV, recovering from dehydration that she didn’t know she had, until she was finally able to leave. Was she insane, was she going mad, was any of it real or did she have a fit of sudden unawareness and forget to eat or drink? The days that she spent inside the door became hazier and hazier until she wasn’t sure they were even real, but in contrast, the dreams she had were more and more lucid, until she couldn't even tell when she was and wasn’t dreaming. She was going mad. She had to quit her job, because she couldn’t stop talking about doors, and she looked so frazzled that nobody would buy a house from her. She was at rock bottom. 

\---

Why did Helen Richardson decide to make a statement to the Magnus Institute, the biggest joke in all of London? Because she was scared, and alone, and losing her sanity. The worst damn joke of all time. 

She needed someone to know that she wasn’t crazy. She needed somebody to believe her, to let her know what was going on, somebody that could explain to her all the unknowable shit that had suddenly appeared in her life. When she got to the institute, a nice young lady with dyed blue hair and a nose piercing, Rosie, led her down to the archives to make her statement. 

“Bit odd,” Helen thought, “that new statements get sent directly to the archives.” 

Whatever. She wasn’t there to tell the institute how to do their job. She was there to talk to somebody who would tell her it wasn’t in her head, that it was real. 

She knocked hesitantly on the door to the archives. “Is anybody here?”

She started when the door was pulled open loudly, and a man stood glaring at her with red hair and a sour expression on his face. “Can I help you?” He asked.

“I’m here to make a statement?”

He sighed, and all the anger melted away into a deep seated loneliness. “Right. Come on in, the Archivists this way.”

She followed him through the maze of archived boxes, until they got to a small open area, where another assistant waved at them.

“Statement giver?” He asked.

“Yeah.”

The other assistant smiled at her. “Good luck!”

“Right…” She didn’t know why she’d need luck, but she was happy to take it.

Hesitantly, she knocked on the head archivist's door and was greeted by a tired looking man with a tape recorder. 

“A tape recorder?” She asked. 

He scowled. “I’m sorry if it seems too _ primitive  _ for you, but unfortunately it's the only thing that will accurately record statements without audio distortion. If you’d rather write your statement, my assistant Tim can get you a paper.”

“No, no, it’s fine!” She said. “Just… vintage.”

“Right.”

She sat down opposite from him.

“Statement of…?”

Helen paused, wondering why he was looking at her.

“You say your name and why you are here to make a statement at this point,” he said. 

“Oh. Helen Richardson.”

“Regarding?”

“Regarding… A new door.”

“Statement recorded direct from subject second October 2016.”

He nodded at her. 

“Begin.”

And so she did.

\---

“Statement ends.”

“Do you believe me?”

“Yes… yes, I think I do.”

Helen sighed in relief. “So you don’t think I’m going mad?”

“No,” he said, “No, I think your experience was real.”

“Helen smiled, a real smile for once, and walked out of Jon’s office. 

Out through a yellow door that Jon failed to notice.

\----

None too soon, there came a noise from Jon’s tape recorder. A shrill laughter, an endless sound of joy. Michael. 

“What.” Jon bit out.

“You don’t even know the half of it all,” Michael said. 

“How did you get here?”

“That’s not the way it works!”

“Are you- are you here to kill me?”

“No.”

“What, then?”

Michael sighed, an awful, earsplitting sound. “I am here to collect what is mine.

“Nothing here is yours!”

“The woman is mine.”

“Helen? She’s gone. She’s left, you can’t have her now.”

“Yes, but did you notice  _ which  _ door she left through?”

There was a pause as the tension built to an unimaginable level. 

“No- you didn’t- you can’t have her!”

“I took what was mine, Archivist.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up: Martin is very very sad and very very lonely!


	7. An unnecessary friend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oh Martin hates himself? What else is new?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tws for self harm, suicidal thoughts, self hate, grief and mentions of abusive family members.  
> Anyway on a lighter note, comments make me very happy so thanks to everyone who has left a comment so far!

Selfish, that’s what he was. Selfish, stupid Martin that didn’t even know Sasha like Jon and Tim knew her, and didn’t have any right to be miserable. 

Martin who didn’t even care because nothing changed for him when she died. He should have done something, gone somewhere, remembered her in some way when she died, but no. He fixed himself a meal, tidied his house, and went to bed exactly like he had planned on the checklist on his refrigerator. 

He should have been thinking about her, he should have been crying or raging or preparing her for whatever was coming after but no. His anxiety was over the three hours he’d been missing in the tunnels, and now needed to complete three hours work in only one. 

So fuck it. When someone you love dies, something is supposed to happen, and you’re supposed to break in a big way. He didn’t and so he needed to do what he did best. 

Deep down he knew he needed to see people just as much as he thought the others needed him, but he pushed that down. Jon hated him, he wouldn’t want to see Martin after one of his closest friends had died. 

Tim it was, since he hadn’t been at work the day he was scheduled to come back, and Martin knew first hand that absence at the Magnus Institute could mean a lot more than sickness. He turned around five times before he finally got to Tim’s house to knock on the door, convincing himself it was a bad idea, he was an idiot for even thinking Tim would want to see him, and he was unwanted because he could never understand how much Tim had cared for Sasha. 

His fears were confirmed.

“Fuck off,” was the immediate answer when Martin knocked on the door. Martin could have left then, he wanted to leave, because he didn’t want to be a bother. But something- maybe his own selfishness- kept him in front of Tim’s door, asking him about  _ Prentiss  _ of all things. Stupid Martin. Stupid, thoughtless Martin. Sasha was eaten by worms, why would he bring up being trapped in his apartment when Sasha was dead because of that bitch. 

Tim told Martin in no uncertain terms to “fuck off.” Again. 

Martin began to walk away, but for some reason, he thought he shouldn’t. If anything, he was supposed to be there for people. That was how friendship worked, right? Tim wasn’t okay. Martin knew that, and so he pulled the oldest trick in the book. 

“Maybe it’s for me.”

Maybe it was, but Martin didn’t think that it was when he said it. It was an oft repeated phrase to his mother, whenever she needed something done. It shifted the blame from her to him. It let her complain, and maybe it would let Tim at least complain about the needy man that had shown up on his doorstep asking for comfort.

To Martin’s surprise, Tim unlocked the door, and Martin was immediately glad that he had stayed and pushed Tim just far enough. He was absolutely  _ covered  _ in blood, all of it his own. Tear tracks stained his face, and in all of a second, Martin knew why Tim didn’t want Martin to babysit him. That was fine, that was fine, but Tim needed medical attention. 

Martin sat Tim down on the beaten couch and went into the bathroom to get towels to wipe the blood off. He was silent. He was silent at least, until Tim started recounting memories of Sasha as he worked. She was kind, she was silly, she knew how to diffuse a situation. She was smart and logical, and never tried to hurt. 

People tell you not to speak ill of the dead. 

What was there to say ill about Sasha?

Martin was silent. He knew how to care for people, and he knew how to watch over them, but he had no  _ idea  _ what to say, no idea what Tim needed to hear. 

Quietly, slowly at first, Tim began to speak.

He told Martin about Sasha, and when he had first known her. Things she had done, and what made her tick, what her favorite television shows were. Mundane details about her life, and little phrases she used. Martin joined in, telling Tim about the times Sasha helped him, what she said, that little silly grin that would creep onto her face whenever she was planning on doing something you didn’t want to be on the other end of. For hours they sat there, Tim with his face in his hands, still softly crying and Martin by his side, with a bloodied rag in his hands, cleaning the tears and blood and above all listening. Both of them knew that they weren’t going to talk about any of this, that they might never speak of Sasha again, but both of them also knew that something had changed, as tangible as her death. 

And when Martin left, and slowly closed Tim’s door behind him, all he could feel was utter disgust at himself. 

He missed Sasha, that much was true. They both did. But Martin, selfish, idiotic Martin, he was  _ glad  _ that he had a friend now. Sasha’s death had brought him closer to one other person, and he felt sick. He felt pain and grief and sadness, of course, but there was also a warm glow inside of him from having company, and he wanted to vomit, because he wasn’t supposed to be like- like  _ this.  _

Calculating stupid, asshole Martin, who only did things for his own benefit, because he was so good at lying to people and telling them they needed him. 

Nobody needed him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me? Putting a theme of lying to yourself in my fic about the distortion? Never.  
> Next up: We get to see Helen and Sasha again!


	8. A mousetrap

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Helen makes a reappearance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sasha & Helen finally meet each other!
> 
> typical spiral tws for this chapter

Helen had been wandering for days- weeks- seconds? It didn’t particularly matter. As she quickly learned, nothing really made sense, and nothing mattered in this strange world in which she was living. After she got over the initial panic of the…  _ place,  _ she was actually quite relieved. She didn't have to sell houses, at any rate, and that was a welcome relief. There was no way out, she’d been plunged into the belly of the beast, but she had nothing left for her outside of the door, so why not embrace the strange world she’d been thrust into? She understood that, at least, rather quickly, and she recognized that she didn’t have to keep looking for a way out. She could stop opening doors that led into the deepest parts of the ocean, or the highest cliffs, or places where humans simply shouldn’t survive. But she didn’t. She didn’t stop, for two reasons. One, because she simply loved it. It was a respite from the monotony of selling houses in beige's and socially acceptable shapes. Helen was an artist. A failed one, but she still saw the wonderful colors and shapes and unrealities as beautiful. Something she could paint. She didn’t, for she needed to see every single thing that this place had to offer her, and she never ended up in the same room more than once. 

The second reason she needed to continue looking was because she heard somebody calling for her, but perhaps calling is a strong word. There was someone wanting for her, and she felt bad for this shape of a human, and the chessboard of logicality that resided inside their brain. 

A feeling of panic. A green door. A feeling of necessity. A yellow door. A feeling of despair. She jumped. 

Of course, it was different each moment, and sometimes she felt stabs of pain coming from somewhere in the hallways, and she did nothing, the room she was in having too much fun with her to let her leave.

There was no logic to where she went, traveling simply though the most interesting looking place she could find. Sometimes she decided to go upwards, sometimes she walked and walked and stayed in the same place. No rhythm or reason existed in this place, and she didn’t feel compelled to become that sanity. 

Obviously, somebody else inside felt differently. 

\---

Sasha had almost given up hope. Stumbling with her eyes closed and her mouth shut and her limbs stiffly by her side. She’d bumped into wall after wall, and she wasn’t bothering to go anywhere. Out wasn’t an option. All she wanted was for the pain to disappear for- for a minute. For a second, if any time had ever existed in the first place. Tears of rubies falling and stinging and making her doubt her own existence, she stumbled into a person for the first time since she arrived in the castle built from hell. 

\---

Helen walked into a large blank white room. Boring. Mundane. Uncharacteristic, even, if she overlooked the woman stumbling around, her ragged dark hair in nets around her face, and her hands shoved into pockets, quietly crying in gemstone tears. Not much to see in this room, and the illusion of a sobbing woman was surely not the oddest thing she’d seen. Quite boring, and she had almost made up her mind to leave, when the woman looked up at her and Helen saw all the grief and denial and wanting reflected back at her from the now open eyes of the woman before her.

\---

Sasha opened her eyes to find herself looking up at a tall gangly woman, and alone in a white room with walls shifting upwards and downwards almost imperceptibly. The woman held her shoulders firmly, and Sasha began sobbing again, now out of relief. Somehow she knew that the woman looking down at her was real, she was real, and that meant she wasn’t lost, and wasn’t alone. 

“Who…” Sasha started, 

“...Are you?” The other woman finished. 

“Sasha.”

“Helen.”

“How did you get here?” Sasha asked.

“Thrown through a door.”

“Oh.”

“What, did you get in a different way?”

“I walked through the door.”

“Why? I mean, it’s not that bad once you get used to it in here, but why?”

Sasha laughed. “Not that bad? Oh, I guess not being able to believe your own senses isn’t that bad. Wandering around madly for days or weeks or seconds or years isn’t that bad.”

Helen shrugged. “I’ve got nothing left for me. At least I don’t have to worry about things like capitalism and reality here.”

Sasha laughed. “Yeah, unreality and madness is better, huh?”

“For me, yeah.”

“Oh.”

Both paused, looking awkwardly down at the floor until Helen asked again, “Seriously though, why did you walk through the door?”

“It was the door or the monster. The door seemed like a better option.” Sasha looked suddenly up at Helen. “How do you do it?”

“Do what?”

“Stay so calm about this whole thing! You’re sane, you’re normal, you know how to deal with this! How?”

Helen laughed. “I’m the furthest thing from sane here. I’m just solid.”

“Well,” Sasha said, “Solid is a lot more than this place usually has.”

\---

Helen looked at Sasha, a ragged tattered mess of a person, standing before her. Sasha must have misread Helen's gaze, as she grasped tighter to Helen's sleeves. 

“Please don’t leave me here,” Sasha said. “I think that with two of us here, you can act as my anchor, and we can find our way out. As one person in the hallways, nothing is real and you can’t trust what you see, but if I have another person with me, at least I know one thing is real.”

Helen looked down. “Sasha,” she said, “There  _ is  _ no way out.”

“Yes there is! We went through a door, so it’s only logical that there’s another door somewhere in here that leads back to where we started!”

“I think you already know that that’s not the case.”

“It has to- there has to be a way out!”

“Logicality doesn’t work very well here.”

“Helen?”

“Yes?”

“If you had a chance to leave this behind, to find a door that led you back to the place you were in before you ended up inside of these corridors, would you take it?”

Helen thought. “I don’t know.”

“I would,” Sasha said. She laughed a bitter laugh. “I would take a door out of here in a fucking instant.”

Helen took hold of Sasha’s hand, giving her a physical reminder of the world before the distortion, and spoke. “Regardless, there are things to see here. May I show you?”

Sasha gripped Helen's hand tighter, and almost imperceptibly, she nodded. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bi rights babey! It has also recently come to my attention that I write really short chapters, so I'm working on that. I have a LOT to say in the next couple of chapters. Plus it's just gonna start becoming more and more of an AU as Sashas "death" changes things more. I'm so excited!


	9. A Set of Strings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Tim does some research.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tws for grief, anger at co-workers, paranoia, worm trauma

The three of them were growing apart.

Jon was convinced somebody had killed Gertrude, and he was determined to find the liar in their midst. 

Martin wanted everybody to be fine, for things to be back how they were before. 

Tim wanted to  _ do  _ something. 

The institute was  _ absurd.  _ Did nobody else see that they were bound so tightly into it that they couldn’t get free if they’d tried, that the death of a coworker by worms wasn’t normal? Was everybody else but Tim so invested in pretending their job was right that they didn’t acknowledge the batshit happenings around them? Tim was starting to feel like the only sane one in the institute, even as everybody around him grew more and more wary of his behavior. 

Sasha was dead, and he seemed to be the only one to care, to be even trying to find a way to avenge her, or figure out  _ how  _ she had died. 

He added another topic of research on top of his research about the circus: Worms. 

Really, there were a remarkable amount of statements regarding supernatural worms to look through, and Tim needed to know  _ exactly  _ what had happened to Sasha that afternoon.

The more he looked though, the more confused he got. The flesh hive- as he learned it was called from a mixture of statements and Gertrude’s own disorganized research- didn’t just consume people and leave nothing left. No, they turned you into one of them. And he’d listened to the last tape he had with Sasha’s voice on it, a blood curdling scream and then three simple words. “I see you.” 

What did she see? 

The most obvious conclusion was that she had run into Prentiss, and been killed by the worms, her last moments spent yelling at a woman who wouldn’t listen. Too simply. Too  _ fucking  _ simple. 

And Jane wasn’t anywhere near the third floor, was she? No, Jane was down in the Archives, terrorizing the rest of them. To Tim’s knowledge, in fact, Jane never left the Archives, and she certainly didn’t climb three flights of stairs and pass through the triple locked doors of artifact storage.

So what happened to Sasha? 

\---

Jon was certain by now that it wasn’t Tim. No, whoever killed Gertrude must have also been responsible for Sasha, and Tim certainly wouldn’t have killed his friend. 

So it was down to Martin or Elias. And Martin was lying about something. 

He called Martin into his office one day when Tim was off reading through statements, which was all he seemed to do at this point. Jon could admit that he himself was a workaholic, but Tim… Tim was getting out of control. 

He put the thought out of his head in favor of confronting Martin. 

“Hi, Jon,” Martin said, “What did you want to talk to me about?”

Jon took a deep breath. “You’re lying to me, Martin.”

“What?”

“You’re  _ lying  _ to me, don’t be bloody stupid!” 

“I’m sorry-”

“You told me Trevor was dead! And he’s not!”

“Trevor?”

“The vampire hunter. You told me he was dead.”

“But… he is.”

“No he’s  _ not,  _ Martin.”

“Oh. Well then. Sorry.” 

“ _ Sorry?” _

“Yes- I must have gotten misinformation somewhere, or-” Jon scoffed, cutting Martin off.

“I really thought he had died,” Martin said.

“So  _ that’s  _ what it is. A misunderstanding.”

“I mean- yes- Jon, you seem to be taking this rather personally-”

“Because you keep  _ lying  _ to me!”

“What am I lying about?” Martin asked.

“I  _ don’t know,”  _ Jon said. 

He pulled out an old crumpled paper, half unreadable due to tea stains, and held it out to Martin. 

Martin blanched. “How did you- where did you- Have you been going through the bin?

“Not the point, but if you must know, it was in the document room where you used to sleep. Your handwriting. ‘If the others find out I’ve been lying-’” He looked furiously up at Martin. “Lying about  _ what? _ ”

“Please- Please don’t- look, just forget about it, okay?”

“I  _ can’t  _ forget it. Too many damn secrets, and now I can’t even trust you. What  _ is  _ it, Martin?”

“Listen,-”

Jon stood up and slammed his fists on the desk. “ _ Martin!” _

“Okay, okay!” Martin took a shuddering breath. “Just promise you won’t, you know… fire me.”

Jon looked at Martin in disbelief. “Fire you…  _ fine.” _

Martin paused. “ I lied on my CV.”

“What.”

“I don’t have a masters in parapsychology. I don’t even have a degree. I tried, believe me, but my mum had- she had some problems when I was seventeen and I ended up dropping out of school to take care of her. I couldn’t get a job anywhere without having finished school, and so I started lying on my application, sending them out just to see what jobs I could get. And I ended up here. I’m not lying about anything other than that- that most of my employment details are made up. I’m only twenty-nine.”

Jon laughed slightly. “Right, um- yes, I believe you.”

“Why are you smiling?” Martin asked.

“There are a  _ lot  _ worse things to lie about.” He paused. “I won’t mention it to Elias.”

“So you don’t mind?”

“I’m rather relieved, to be quite honest.”

So he lied on his CV. That explained so much, actually. It explained why he didn’t know how to research, why he was always taking the longest to complete simple tasks, why he always seemed so hesitant that he was even welcome with the archival crew. 

Martin could be trusted, Martin was a friend, it was fine. 

One problem.

That left only one serious suspect as Gertrude and Sasha's murderer.

\----

Tim spent hours reading statements searching tapes, but nothing made sense. Sasha wasn’t eaten by worms, there were too many holes to that story.

But he was starting to think of why that many holes might be present in her story. 

She wasn’t killed by worms, that much was obvious, but she was dead nonetheless. And there was only one person that had been with her in her last minutes before she died. 

As Tim listened to more and more of Gertrude’s tapes, he became convinced of the certainty that somebody had murdered Sasha. After all, the entire archival team knew that there was a wonderful place to hide a body right underneath them, and Sasha had always asked too many questions for her own good. Always strived to understand the unknowable, and maybe that was a problem, if weird shit like flesh eating worms happened at the institute on a regular basis. 

So, somebody had killed Sasha James, and shoved her corpse into the tunnels underneath the institute. 

Only one person was with Sasha before she died.

Only one person seemed so calm talking about her death.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter we get to hear from Basira and have some fun :))))


	10. A Box of Tapes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tw for gaslighting but only kind of

Basira was one of the officers that had been section thirty-oned. That meant that- lucky her- she got put on all the cases involving the Magnus Institute. She was getting damn sick of that place. Also lucky her, the head Archivist was a paranoid bastard of a man, who was more and more of a pain to talk to. All he would talk about was tapes, tapes tapes, and more tapes. Gertrudes tapes. Statements. Research. She didn’t want to break it to the poor man that his obsession had put him as the number one suspect for Gertrude’s murder, since she personally thought he was nothing more than traumatized. She came in once a week, sometimes less, to bring him statements, and he received them almost like the starving men in the alley received food when she gave it to them. It was unsettling, the way he pounced on each new morsel of information as if one more word from Gertrude Robinson would make sense of his life in the institute. Truth be told, even after the police had mostly cleared his name, she still felt bad for him. That’s why she was going to the institute after her work shift was over to bring him another tape that he wasn’t even supposed to have.

She waved at the receptionist. “Hey, Rosie. I got something to bring down to the archives, is that okay?”

Rosie peered down at Basira from over her desk. “Do you have a visitor pass? The archives are staff only.”

With a sigh, Basira pulled her visiting paper out of her pocket. She  _ knew  _ Rosie had seen her go down to the archives time and time again, but it seemed like she was always trying to make Basira jump through one more hoop. Really, it was getting on Basira’s nerves.

“You used to let me go down to the archives whenever I needed, Rosie.”

“Did I?” Rosie asked. “I don’t recall.”

“Yeah, you’ve seen my pass enough times that you really don’t have to stop me every time.”

“There are rules, darling.”

“There are,” Basira sighed, “Aren’t there.” She squinted at Rosie. “Oh, did you get your hair dyed?”

“No?”

“Yeah, you did. Three weeks ago it was brown, and this week it’s bright blue.”

“It’s been like this since I’ve started working here, Basira.” Rosie furrowed her eyebrows. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Sure, you’ve always had blue hair, just like you’ve always had those glasses.”

“I  _ have  _ always had these glasses.”

Basira paused. Rosie suddenly looked  _ very  _ different. “Uh, yeah. I’m gonna go deliver these tapes,” she said, suddenly unnerved. 

She couldn’t shake the feeling of her skin crawling until she got down to the archives, where at least she knew her skin was supposed to be crawling. 

“Hi, Tim, Hi, Martin. Have you guys seen Jon anywhere?” She asked, holding up the tapes as explanation for her arrival. 

“He’s in his office,” Martin said, while at the same time Tim said,

“He’s locked himself inside the office to whisper paranoia into tape recorders, as usual.”

“Right…” Basira said. It seemed clear as day now, that Sasha had been the glue holding the archives together. “Hey, has Rosie always had blue hair?”

“Uh…. yeah?” Tim said.

Martin just looked at her confused, nodding. 

“Because just two weeks ago, I could have sworn she had brown hair, and she  _ definitely  _ doesn’t wear glasses.”

“Basira, are you doing okay?” Tim asked, real concern in his voice. “I really don’t want another friend to go mad.”

“What- No, I’m fine,- wait,  _ another _ ?” 

“Ah.” Tim sighed and his face returned to the bitterness he had before Basira had walked in. “Jon’s convinced Martin’s a murderer, and he’s more antisocial than ever before. Sleeps in his office most days, and he won’t stop with that  _ damn  _ tape recorder.” Tim laughed bitterly. “I’d be worried about him if I didn’t hate his fucking guts so much right now.”

“Everybody grieves differently,” Basira said. 

“I know,” Tim said. “I’m not really angry at  _ him.  _ But he’s the closest and most punchable person around, so…” He trailed off.

“I’d be pissed at your boss, if it were me,” Basira said. “He’s the one that didn’t take the worms seriously.”

“Oh believe me, someday I’m going to  _ murder  _ Elias. But I need a day or two for preparation, so for now I’m just pissed at Jon.”

Basira looked at Tim, concerned. “I really hope that was a joke,” she said. 

“I hope it was a joke too,” Tim said. 

Basira left the conversation thoroughly unnerved, which was how she seemed to end all conversations she had at the institute. At this rate, Jon was going to end up being the sanest person in the Archives. “No, that title would have to go to Martin,” she thought, and pushed open the door to Jons office. 

The first sound she was greeted with was the sound of a tape recorder switching off. Damn, Tim was right. It certainly looked like he’d been sleeping at his desk most nights. 

“Hey,” she said, unable to think of a better greeting. 

“Basira.”

“A thank you would be nice,” she said. “I mean, I did bring you this nice tape, at great risk to myself and my job.”

Jon glared. “Thank you.” 

“Good.” With that awkward conversation out of the way, she handed the tape to him, and turned to leave.

“Basira?”

She looked back at him. “Yeah?”

“Thank you for the tapes. I know how hard it is for you to get down to the archives.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean- Rosie tends to take her job very seriously, so it must have been an ordeal to bring something down here.”

“Rosie.”

“What? Is there something wrong?”

“No,” Basira said, “Just, well.”

“What?”

“Did she have blue hair before this week? And glasses?”

“Yes,” Jon said. “She’s always had colorful hair, hasn’t she?”

“No… I’d bet my left arm this is new.”

“Right.”

“I’m not crazy, but I’m starting to think everybody else here is.”

“Right…”

Basira huffed. “Whatever, Jon. I’ll come by with more tapes if I can get a hold of any.”

“Right,” Jon said a third time, his mind whirring faster each second.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's my birthday so hooray we get a chapter! Yay!  
> Next up: Helen and Sasha :)


	11. A world of roses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Helen and Sasha.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey yall, it's been hectic for me so this chapter is really short, but it is Helen and Sasha. Another note, I'm going to start putting the tws at the bottom notes since eventually they'll get spoilery.

Helen pulled Sasha through a blue door that led to a maze of thorns and roses leaving jagged cuts on both of their arms. She pulled her through a green door into must and mold and an asylum that hadn’t seen the light of day in decades. She pulled them through a stone door into a castle, through an oak door into a desert, through a glass door into a future. Sasha and Helen traveled the world and the impossible and saw everything that was not meant to be seen by human eyes. But their eyes weren’t so human anymore. They traveled for milliseconds and millenia at the same time, they traveled centimeters and galaxies, they went upwards and downwards and backwards and inside out and never forwards. 

Helen smiled. Perhaps her prison could be beautiful if she was not alone. Perhaps she could be king of infinite space with her mind expanded to hold another. 

Sasha screamed. Everything was more and bigger and smaller and worse than she knew. In all of a second, her mind was opened to the knowledge of nonsense.

Still laughing, Helen pulled Sasha into a more familiar corridor, the same yellow and pink one they had been dropped in before meeting. If it hadn’t been for Helen’s firm hand gripping her wrist, Sasha would have slipped away into the jaws of the beast. Even now, Sasha could feel herself being devoured. 

Helen gripped Sasha’s arms firmly, holding her in place. “Hey.”

“Why, Helen?”

“I-”

“What the fuck were you thinking?”

“I liked it.”

Sasha tore away from Helen. “I didn’t!”

“What,” Helen asked with difficulty- “Would you like to do here?”

“Leave! That’s what I want to do here, I want to leave!”

“We can’t. You  _ know  _ we can’t. So what would you like to do otherwise?”

Sasha took a shaky breath. “Show me your favorite thing here.”

“I can’t.”

“What do you mean you can’t, you can go anywhere here!”

“I’ve never walked through the same door twice.”

Sasha stared at her. “You mean… all the places you took me, finding me…?”

“Dumb luck,” Helen finished. 

“No.” Sasha shook her head. “No, it can’t have been, you found me, it has to have been something.”

“It was something. Luck. I’m glad I found you here, Sasha, but I walked into a room and there was a person there. At best, I was idly wondering who was trapped in the same area as me.”

“No, No, No, you found me for a reason. There has to be a reason.”

“There isn’t one.”

Sasha looked so lost and upset that Helen felt the need to say something .

“Listen Sasha, destiny… it’s a joke. The universe hardly has plans for any of us, I don’t even think there’s some sort of great god watching over us, moving us like pieces of a chessboard towards each other. There’s no red string connecting us. It’s luck and chance and that’s it. I like you, Sasha, and I’m glad there’s somebody else in the halls with me, but us meeting doesn’t mean anything. 

“Oops,” Helen thought, “That didn’t do much good.”

“But listen!” She said. “We can be friends without being bound together, right?”

Sasha smiled shakily. Maybe Helen’s words had done some good after all. 

“Right,” Sasha said.

This time, Sasha was the one to take Helen's hand. “Anything is better than being stagnant,” she said. “You can show me the things you’ve found here, but you have to stay with me. The whole way, you can’t let go of me for even an instant. I’m not going to be lost again.”

“I can deal with that,” Helen said.

And together they fell into the madness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tws for typical spiral madness, and relationship issues, I guess? It's not huge because,,,, people sometimes argue.   
> Two things: 1.I'm back on my Hamlet bullshit so lets hope I can get this story done. I do have like three new ideas so I'm TRYING not to lose steam. 2. I've been on a mary cromwell kick while writing this, please listen to "acolytes of the machine," specifically "city of doors."  
> Up next: Bastard bastard bastard man. (Elias)


	12. A Confrontation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elias is trying his best.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yoo my guys I'm gonna try and update every Wednesday but class is getting hectic so we'll see how that goes. Ik its tuesday today and I'm updating but I need that serotonin so it's here a day early.

Elias thought things were going  _ marvelously.  _ His Archivist was successfully marked by the corruption, terribly suspicious of everybody around him, and with an entirely unproductive team of assistants. He’d seen Sasha walk into the distortions hallways, so he knew that soon, the Archivist would be marked by the distortion. Yes, it was wonderful. He wondered how long he could keep his archivist in the dark about everything. Jonathan still had no idea what the institute  _ was,  _ and Elias planned to keep it that way. Well, he planned to keep it that way until Tim burst into his office, hatchet in hand, and worst of all,  _ without knocking.  _ Elias sighed. It was already going to be a long day.

“You killed Sasha!”

“I did  _ not.  _ Now, where is this coming from? Sit down, put the hatchet away, and we can have a nice, civilized chat.”

Tim looked warily at Elias, but sat down in the seat across from him, although he refused to let go of the hatchet.

“Good enough, I suppose,” Elias sighed. “Now, of all the things to accuse me of, how did you get it into your head that I killed dear Sasha?”

Tim was quivering with rage and was close to tears. “You were  _ with  _ her before she died. She’s not a flesh hive. We didn’t find a body. Ergo,  _ you  _ killed her.”

“And where, pray tell, did I stash the body?”

“In the tunnels.” Tim scoffed. “ _ Obviously  _ the tunnels, it’s already proven to be a hiding stop for bodies.”

“Honestly, Tim. Did you  _ really  _ think I’d be stupid enough to make the same mistake twice?”

“Twice- wait-”

“ _ Yes  _ Tim, I killed Gertrude. It certainly took long enough for you to figure it out, but I honestly didn’t kill Sasha. There are a lot of things in artifact storage, though. Lots of reasons she wouldn’t  have come out.”

“But-”

“Let’s not breathe a word of the unpleasant fate of the previous Archivist to our new one, shall we, Tim?”

“If you think I’m not going to tell Jon that you’re a murderer you’re a fucking idiot, you-”

“Name calling isn’t  _ nice,  _ Tim. And here’s why Jon will stay blissfully ignorant of the fate of his predecessor for the current moment. Danny. Nobody but Sasha knew about him. And you don’t  _ want  _ anybody else to know, because if they do, you will have to deal with those looks of pity. I’m sure you know the ones, grinding into you, searching your soul, like-”

A door opened, and a very tired looking archivist walked through. 

“You killed Gertrude.”

“Oh,  _ honestly,  _ can I  _ not _ have all my dramatic confrontations at once?”

Jon looked at Tim, just then noticing the other man sitting silent in Elias’s office. 

“Ah, good,” Tim said, “We’re all on the same page now.”

Elias sighed. “One right after another. Really.”

“ _ Why?” _

“Honestly Archivist, did you think I’d confess my reasons for a murder on tape? Turn that thing off.” Elias pointed at the tape recorder in Jon’s hand, whirring softly. With a scowl, Jon flicked it off.

Elias leaned back in his chair. “The reason for killing Gertrude was simple. She threatened everything this institute stands for.”

“What? What does the institute stand for? Murder? Worms?”

“The preservation of knowledge, Tim.”

“Fuck off.”

“I am still your boss, Timothy.”

“Fuck off,  _ sir.” _

It really had been a mistake to hire Timothy, hadn’t it, Elias thought. And he couldn’t be fired now, too much work to find another assistant that could influence his Archivist like Tim could. It was useless to show the full range of his powers in front of the Archivist as well, since he didn’t want to give away too much of what he could do. So, he resigned himself to dealing with an insubordinate employee the way any boss would. 

“Tim, would you go to the archives and call Martin up here? I’d love to save us all some time and energy explaining the situation again.”

Tim just glared.

“ _ Please.”  _ Elias smiled, and Tim threw his chair on the floor with a loud bang that made Jon jump, but left the room nonetheless. 

“Good.” Elias looked at his Archivist. “Now, with Timothy out of the room, I think there are some things you need to know.”

\---

Tim couldn’t believe it. Well, Obviously he could believe it since he was the one that had gone to confront Elias in the first place, but what he couldn’t believe was that Elias was flatly denying  killing Sasha. He even confessed to another murder, one that wasn’t even on Tim’s radar, but he had the sheer audacity to pretend like he didn’t know what happened to Sasha. 

“Martin,” he called into the Archives, “Elias wants to see all of us in his office.”

“What?”

“Not about your CV.”

“Oh, Okay,” came the relieved answer from Martin.

“It’s about murder.”

“Wait,  _ what?”  _

“Come on, Elias will explain it all.”

Tim began to walk up the stairs to the archives, ignoring the confused spluttering from Martin, and knocking over as many papers as he could on the way up. Elias didn’t deserve organization.

\---

“So, Jonathan. You’re the archivist. Do you know what that means?”

“I… archive.”

“Ah. So, do you know how Gertrude died?”

“Three bullets to the chest.”

“And I shot those bullets,” Elias said. “Do you know why I did that?”

“No,” Jon said, “No, I don’t think I do.”

“And I’m not going to tell you.”

Jon interjected furiously. “If you won’t tell me the most  _ important  _ piece of information, than why-”

“ _ You  _ want to know the wrong information, Jonathan,” Elias said. 

Jon was silent, seething with anger. Finally, he asked Elias, “What are the right questions?”

“That  _ is  _ the real question, isn’t it?”

Jon glared. “Are you going to tell me?”

“No. No, that’s something you need to figure out for yourself.”

Tim walked back into the room, accompanied by Martin. Tim knocked a stack of papers off Elias’s desk, and sat down on it. Elias sighed. 

“Did you kill someone?” Martin asked.

“Yes.”

“He killed Sasha!” Tim exclaimed.

“I did  _ not  _ kill Sasha. I did, however, kill Gertrude Robinson, and she very much deserved it.”

“ _ Why? _ ”

“What did she do?”

“You  _ do  _ realize that you just confessed to murder in front of three employees?”

“She was an ass, none of your business, and I don’t think you have enough leverage to convince anybody that Elias Bouchard, head of the Magnus Institute, is a murderer.” Elias smiled and clasped his hands, tapping at his desk. “Now, does anybody have any questions?”

Martin raised his hand. “Are you planning on killing any of us?”

“You don’t have to raise your hand,” said Tim, while at the same time Elias said, “Only if you get particularly annoying.”

“I have a question,” Tim said loudly, now sitting cross legged on Elias’s desk. “Why won’t you admit you killed Sasha?”

“Because I  _ didn’t,  _ Tim. Believe what you will, I really could care less, but you’ve followed a false trail that leads to an even  _ stupider  _ conclusion. Fitting, though, isn’t it? You never  _ were  _ the smartest, especially not compared to your dear brother. He was always the brains of the Stoker family, and so you published while he wrote. Now you’re sitting in the archives in a dead end job, and he’s, well… you know. Perhaps being the  _ dumb  _ one kept you out of trouble, because he certainly made enough for the two of you.”

Tim had unconsciously stood up from Elias’s desk. His face was chalk white, and his mouth was set in a grimace, as if he couldn’t decide whether to cry or punch Elias in the jaw. 

Elias smiled, a cruel thing. “Get back to work, Timothy.”

Tim walked out of the office as if in a trance. He didn’t even slam the door behind him. 

Elias turned. “Now, you’ve been awfully quiet, Jon. Any questions?”

“I don’t have the  _ right  _ ones.”

“You don’t.”

Jon paused. “What happened to Sasha?”

“She’s dead.”

“Who  _ killed  _ her, Elias?”

Elias paused. “Michael,” he said.

“ _ Michael?” _

“She  _ is  _ dead, Jon. I didn’t want her dead, if you can believe that. She was a great asset to the archival staff, and I would have kept her around for your entire tenure as Archivist, if there hadn’t  been that… unfortunate situation.”

Jon took a deep breath, no idea what to say. 

“Get back to Archiving,” Elias said. “And take Martin with you. We can continue this conversation later, if you’d like, but  _ I  _ would like to get some work done today. ”

\---

As soon as the Archival team was out of his office, Elias was able to breathe a sigh of relief. “That had gone better than planned,” he thought as he picked Tim’s discarded hatchet off the floor. He really  _ was  _ glad that he was able to stop Tim before his fine mahogany desk was chopped to bits. Yes, his Archivist knew more than he had planned on at this point, but even so, none of his plans were completely messed up. The archivist was already marked by the web and the corruption, and with the NotThem running wild in the institute, it was only a matter of time before he was marked by the stranger. Only a matter of time. 

Elias  _ hated  _ waiting. A bit ironic, since he had lived for centuries already, but true. Even when he was younger, he hated waiting. Perhaps that was why his earlier plans had failed, or perhaps an Archivist really  _ did  _ need to be marked by all fourteen fears to begin a ritual. But that, even that, begged the question of connection. If all the fears were intertwined, how many times would Jonathan  _ really  _ need to be marked? Was Smirke even correct? And was Elias a fool for trusting in so many what-if’s?

Some avatar of the beholding he was, if he couldn’t even formulate a ritual. 

“No,” he thought to himself, “No. It is not foolishness that compels me to bide my time.”

An avatar of terrible knowledge should be better at lying to himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hate Elias. He's so much fun to write but oh my gosh he's a bastard. The content warnings are elias-typical going into someones brain and pulling out their thoughts.


	13. A bullet in the leg

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Melanie makes an appearance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey remember when I said I was gonna update every Wednesday, like last chapter? Turns out that just means I'm gonna update at least once a week maybe more if I get excited about the episode, which I did this time. Hence, I wrote a bunch and wanted instant gratification so I'm putting this up. Content warnings in the end notes.

Stabbed by a ghost, company dissolved, and with ghost hunting as much of a joke as it was, professionally  _ ruined  _ for any other career was a new low, even for Melanie, and she spent her time driving around in the rattiest van anybody had ever seen, and pining after her executive producer and the ex-girlfriend of her… what was he? Enemy sounded too strong, but friend just wasn’t true. Her acquaintance. Her acquaintance not by choice, who hated her guts, and whom she hated right back. Yeah, her life was in shambles. 

So now she was here, standing in front of a woman called Rosie with very pretty blue hair, trying to weasel her way down to the Archives for research. And of course, of  _ fucking  _ course, she had to buzz Jon up to the front desk so he could vouch for her to visit the Archives, just so she could get some fucking research done. 

“Listen, Rosie, Jon is a friend of mine, I’m sure he’ll let me down, if you would let me just go and  _ see  _ him-”

“Sorry dearie, we have procedures here, you can’t just burst in here, expecting to be let into the Archives-”

“I  _ know!  _ I’m saying that he already told me I could drop by, and I’ve fulfilled your  _ procedures,  _ so-”

“It’ll only take a minute, darling,-”

“Melanie?”

Melanie turned. Jon was standing in front of Rosie's desk, looking very confused indeed.

“Jon,” she said, “I need you to vouch for me so I can check into the archives for my research. I checked the library but I couldn’t find what I needed, and I told Rosie you would let me in.”

He stared at her, then finally said, “Alright,” and led her down the dingy stairway to the archives. 

One would expect the archives of such a place as the Magnus Institute to have a grand archive to go along with their even grander library. One would be wrong. Melanie wrinkled her nose as she  walked down the stairs. 

“Sorry,” Jon said, “We had an infestation of worms.”

Now, how was one meant to respond to a statement like that? Melanie certainly didn’t know, and gave Jon a rather awkward “Thanks,” before setting off to continue her research. She had told Jon what her main research was about, but hadn’t gotten any further than the vague indication that she was studying war ghosts. 

It was a lot broader of a topic than it seemed. 

She had researched the more well known sights that ghost hunters went when they wanted to study war ghosts, and now it was time for her to go above and beyond. War ghosts didn’t get her anywhere in her research. Fake sights, ones other ghost hunters had already explored to hell and back, and people making up stories for attention. The entire section was useless. If there was one shred of truth in it, it was like finding a needle in a haystack. 

So Melanie found a different way to search. She left the word “Ghost” out of her search completely, opting instead for “Death,” “War,” “Slaughter,” “Blood,” and “Anger.” That got her more of what she wanted. From what she had found, people in the academic fields hardly ever referred to things as what they  _ were,  _ opting instead for a highly specialized term that made information nigh impossible for anybody else to obtain. It was just a matter of Melanie reading enough fake shit that she learned the terms to search for. 

Her search wasn’t helped by the fact that Elias seemed hell-bent on hiring the most incompetent Archivists the world had seen.

“Where-” she muttered, “Is- This!”

Eventually she began searching for violence entities. Only way she could find the war ghosts she searched for. Searching chronologically helped marginally as well, but with the archives in the state of disrepair that they were in, it wasn’t like she could find everything she needed without doing copious amounts of digging through stack after stack of useless, false, statements. 

At some point Martin came up to her and asked if she wanted some tea, but she declined as politely as she possibly could while still making sure he knew she was really just telling him to fuck off. 

There was a brown, unmarked box laying on top of the archival shelves dedicated to various vengeful ghosts. All of the statements on the main shelves of the archives were false.. But the box? Jackpot.

Melanie was not a tall woman, and she was  _ not  _ going to ask any of the smug, know it all archival staff members to come with her to pull a box down that they would take away the moment they saw it. It was an important box, she could tell. 

The archival staff would be able to tell too, she was certain, so she did the only reasonable thing for somebody in her position to do. She climbed the shelves.

Not a hard thing for her to do, since there were a lot of stunts involved in creating Ghost Hunt UK, and they certainly didn’t have enough money to hire a stuntman, so she knew a thing or two about how to climb shelves. One foot, another foot, and she was grasping for the box, standing on the teetering archive shelves. She pulled at it once- twice- and third time’s the charm.

Or not.

The box hit her squarely on the head, causing her to lose her grip on the shelf she was on, and tumble backwards into another stack of unorganized files, clutching the box that had nearly given her a concussion. 

“Son of a bitch!” She screamed, and promptly covered her mouth. Damn it. She could already hear the footsteps of the rapidly approaching archival staff, and shoved the box she’d worked so hard to obtain inside of the pile of papers she was sitting in, and did her best to look like she had just slipped. 

“Melanie?” Tim was the first to reach her. 

“Over here.” She waved at him brightly. 

“Are you okay?”

“A little clumsy, but nothing more than that.”

Martin ran up beside her. “Do you need ice for that? Your head is a little….” He trailed off, making a gesture at her forehead. 

“No, I’m fine. Thanks though! Just need to be a bit more careful going through the files!”

“Melanie-”

“Tim, I’m fine! Just going to have a sit-down to look through these.” She gestured at the files strewn around her.

“Are you sure you don’t need ice? Or an ambulance?”

“Really, Martin, it was just a fall. Besides, I bruise easily.”

“You said it was a stumble.”

“I stumbled, and then fell. I’ll be fine.”

Martin and Tim frowned in unison, but seemed to realize that she wasn’t going to accept help unless she was only short of dying. Finally, gloriously, they left her alone. 

She pulled the box out from behind her. 

She had been right about its contents, they were much more interesting and  _ much  _ more real than anything else in the section the institute had on war ghosts. And it was much more thorough on how to search for such entities. She vaguely wondered why Gertrude made it specifically hard to find any real leads when somebody was looking through the archives, but feverish curiosity stole that thought from her mind.

There was just enough of the statement and follow up written in English that she was enthralled by the contents, but little enough that she still had to spend an hour translating the most basic parts of the statement from Hindi to English.

A fucking pain, that’s what it was. 

Oh, she found her information all right, but it took hours to decipher, and once she had gotten a time and place, she figured that’s all she was getting out of the statement. She had enough that she could research the historical events attached to the ghost, anyway. 

In a fit of jealousy, stupidity, or perhaps intelligence, she slipped the statement and its contents back on top of the shelves of the archives, where nobody would think to look. It was her quest, after all, and she wasn’t planning on letting anybody usurp it. 

Especially not the archives. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings are anger, swearing as usual, mentions of violence.  
> Anyway so I HAVE plotted out this story and it's so much fun! It's like I'm taking the Magnus Archives, then asking myself "Hmm, what would cause even more pain than what we've already gone through?" The I do that, and everybody gets hurt! :)
> 
> Next up: Murder!


	14. A deal with the devil

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Something is not right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Posting schedule who? It's basically Wednesday, am I right? Anyway my google doc holding this story broke 200 pages the other day and I proofread up to chapter 34 so I can consistently post and now it's hard to write because it goes so slowly so this is my celebration that I managed to write much.

“Michael.”

“What about him, Jon?” Tim asked. 

“He killed Sasha.”

“No he fucking didn’t! It was Elias. All of the clues lead back to Elias! Michael was her friend. ” Tim paused. “Wasn’t he?”

“Elias told us the truth. The awful truth, but the truth. Why would he lie about Sasha in particular?”

Martin piped up this time. “Maybe he wanted us to think it was Michael so we’d lose an ally.”

Tim pointed enthusiastically at Martin. “Whatever Elias fucking wants, it isn’t for us to get along. He wants us to doubt each other. He wants us to think that we can't trust anybody.”

“I don’t think he does, actually,” Jon said. 

Tim laughed. “What, then? What does he want from us? If Michael hadn’t killed Sasha, Elias would have. He  _ let her die.  _ That’s enough for me. You aren’t sticking up for the bastard, are you?”

“Of course not,” Jon snapped. “I’m just saying that he seems to be telling the truth on this.”

“Whether or not he killed Sasha, I still want him dead.”

Jon was silent.

“What?” Tim demanded. “Don’t you want him dead too?”

“I do,” Jon said, “But I think there’s so much more behind this.”

\---

Jon wanted Elias dead, damn it. He wanted Elias not only dead, but killed painfully. But that wasn’t important. 

Elias had answers, and regardless of how much information he was going to give out at once, he had the answers to give, and that was enough for Jon. Somehow, for some reason, Elias knew something about Gertrude. Knowing he was working for a murderer simply wasn’t enough, he needed to know how to play the murderer so that he was on top. Right now, he was the one whose strings were being pulled. He needed to be the puppeteer. 

How?

_ That  _ was the right question.

\----

Martin wasn’t stupid. People treated him as such, because he was big and nervous, and stammered his way through conversations. That didn’t mean he was stupid, it only meant people weren’t as good at judging characters as they thought. He was used to it, didn’t care that much. After all, he was the caretaker, and it didn’t matter what people thought of him, so he was more than happy to fill the role assigned for him. 

Being overlooked  _ did  _ mean that he was able to glean more information than he was supposed to have, however. Not that he used it for malicious purposes, because he  _ was  _ a good person, that was true. But knowing things could come in handy for understanding others. 

So Elias was a killer, and Jon and Tim wanted to kill Elias back. Yeah. He’d heard their whole conversation. 

Martin had an agenda of his own, that did not involve more of his co-workers becoming murderers, so he figured he could try to talk some sense into them before going at the situation his own way. 

\---

“Tim?”

“What?” Came the slightly muffled response.

“I have an idea.” He paused. “What to do with Elias.”

“Come in,” Tim said. 

Martin creaked the door open, as quietly as he could, and Tim was laying face down on the floor in the break room. He hurried over to the spot where Tim was laying, and tried to pick him off the  floor. Tim didn’t budge.

“Just let me lay here, Martin,” He said, but rolled over so he was facing Martin anyway. “So. What to do with Elias?”

Martin took a deep breath. “I think we could get him arrested.”

Tim laughed bitterly. “What? You think the police are going to listen to  _ us?  _ Over a rich white CEO? Martin, we don’t have any evidence, and even if we did, the police don’t  _ care.” _

Martin frowned. “Basira would listen. She cares, at least.”

“No she fucking doesn’t, Martin. Okay? Even if we get the police to take any of us down here in the archives seriously, the justice system doesn't give a rats’ ass about keeping Elias locked up. He’s a fucking rich white man, and I’m  _ not. _ ”

“But we can’t just kill him-”

“I don’t think I could get away with it, okay Martin? Is that what you want to hear? I couldn’t get away with a murder, and I know that, but would it really be such a shame if Elias suffered a freak accident?” Tim sighed. “I’m not planning a fucking murder, but I’m not planning on helping out our criminal boss anytime soon, either.”

Martin left. He was going to have to do this on his own, then. 

\---

Basira was on her way to the institute. She told herself it was the last tape she was going to bring to the Archives, the last tape she was going to smuggle out of the station, but in her heart of hearts she knew that wasn’t true. Something was making her want to give him the tapes, and she was listening. So she was standing in front of-  _ Rosie’s-  _ desk, wondering if the secretary had always smiled like that. 

“Just need to pop by the Archives, Rosie,” She said. 

Rosie- was it Rosie?- Smiled. “ I’ve got to check your visitor pass first, you know the rules.”

Basira squinted. “You’re not Catholic, Rosie,” she said. 

The thing that called itself Rosie looked at her, puzzled.

Basira reached out and touched the cross that hung around its neck. “No,” Basira said slowly, “You’re not Rosie.” 

The  _ thing  _ looked her square in the eyes. “Yes,” it said, “I am.

She ran. What else was there for her to do, when the thing that was not Rosie looked at Basira with such  _ hunger  _ in its eyes?

“Jon,” she panted, running down the stairs to the archives and almost falling over herself locking the door. “There’s something I need to tell you.”

Tim looked up at her from his desk. “What?”

“I need Jon- actually, you know know what? You need to know too. Promise to believe me?”

“I’ve seen worms and my boss is a murderer, and -yeah, I’ll believe you! Pinkie swear,” he said.

“Rosie’s dead.”

“I saw her this morning.”

“No, you didn’t. You saw her replacement.”

Tim made a face of confusion, and Basira misinterpreted it to mean that he didn’t believe her. “I told you, you’d think I was stupid!” She threw her hands in the air. “Listen, the thing upstairs, it’s not Rosie, only all of you are brainwashed into thinking it’s her. I don’t know why I can tell and you can’t, but you have to believe me.”

“Basira,” Tim said, “I believe you.” He hesitated. “Don’t tell Jon, alright? I want to deal with this myself. He’s such a skeptic, he probably wouldn’t believe you anyway.”

“What  _ is  _ it?” Basira asked. 

Tim pulled out a stack of statements. “I've been researching what happened to Sasha and Da- I mean, Sasha, and so I’ve been looking through some of the older tapes, and listening to Gertrudes, and there’s a  _ thing.  _ That the circus can do, I mean.”

“Sorry, the circus?”

“Evil clowns.” Tim paused. “It sounds stupid when I say it out loud.”

“It really does.”

“I’ve been researching artifact storage too, some of the things Sasha would tell me about when she was… yeah.”

“Yeah.”

Tim shook his head slightly, and continued. “A  _ thing,  _ a creature that can alter memories, so that only one person can remember the real person there was before it.”

“And… I’m the one, aren’t I?”

“I think,” Tim sighed, “I think you are.”

“How do we kill it?”

“I don’t know,” Tim said. “Maybe- I dunno, it’s stupid, but maybe if we kill Rosie?”

“Like, Not Rosie, or we find Real Rosie and kill her?”

Tim stared at Basira. “Not Rosie.”

Basira paused. “And you want me to help you with a murder?”

“Hey, it’s not like my boss will care.”

“Concerning.”

“Yeah. Listen, I can do it myself, I just need you to make sure Jon and Martin are distracted. Give Jon a tape or something.”

“I’m not stupid. I’m not going to become an accessory, I worked hard for this job, and half the police would throw me out if they even get a whiff of me being part of something in the institute.”

Tim scoffed. “ I thought you guys were all buddy-buddy with each other down in the precinct.”

Basira glared, but didn’t comment. “If you’re going to do this after hours, why not wait until Jon and Martin leave?”

“Jon sleeps here sometimes. So does Martin, after the worm attack.”

“Wait until they’re asleep, then. 

Tim grinned. “Basira, you’re a genius.”

“I know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings: mentions of police corruption and that's it
> 
> OK so I need some help. I wanna do nanowrimo with an original horror plot bc I’ve been into writing horror but the only things my brain can come up with his haunted houses and Greek mythology allusions and Mabel’s already been written so plz comment and give me suggestions of what to write


	15. A wish and a death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A very short chapter in which we see Helen and Sasha again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YO? Two chapters in two days? I'm really stoked to writing this and I just got past a bad part so I'm cranking through writing this at breakneck speed.(Ps thank all yall who leave me comments, it really does make my day, I save them all to read through when I'm at a writers block, so sending extra love to you guys who've been commenting.)
> 
> Also re on that update schedule: no.

Helen loved the hallways of the distortion more than she had loved any houses she sold. She knew the distortion did not love her back. A cruel smile, bending and twisting to watch her, it could never love her. That was okay. Conditional love was still a kind of sick attachment. As much as she needed to revel in the lies, it needed her to do the same.

Helen was tethered to a girl she would not let go of. 

The distortion whispered to her, telling her sweet lies of happiness, of completion, of one-ness, and every time it spoke to her, she was pulled towards a center, towards an ending, towards a final apex where she would become. 

She resisted. 

Love is, in many ways, a rope tying you to one spot. Love is, in many ways, an untethering of that knot. In a logical reality, those two types of love cannot exist in tandem, but Helen did not live in any kind of logical reality, and so she let her loves pull her and buffet her like a reed in the wind. “Later,” She thought to herself. She could deal with it later. 

Helen was very good at lying. 

\---

Sasha was fading. She could feel it, as she gripped Helen's hand tightly, it would slip either way. The distortion hated her, for she was nothing more than food. She was not an extension of its lies, she was a logic that had clung to their own lie, and was living, and it  _ hated  _ her for that. 

It wanted her dead, and she was more than happy to go, if she did not have unfinished business and a responsibility to stay with the girl that had offered her a hand and pulled her out of the deception, and further in at the same time.

So Sasha was not going to leave so easily, and she could feel the distortion, the living thing that was  _ not  _ Michael, straining against her, hating her, wanting her gone, and she was not going to comply, because she had a  _ person _ \- a  _ thing  _ to stand with. 

\---

Helen told the distortion that they were not going to take Sasha. She would become them, she would rid them of the cancer that was Michael Shelley, but they could not have Sasha. Sasha was her property, not that of madness. A lie, but a pretty one. The distortion was more than happy to humor her lies. 

And so Helen followed a trail of breadcrumbs laid out for her, and pulled Sasha with her through doorway after doorway, each one leading the both of them closer to a central point. No, perhaps central point was the wrong word, for there was no center in the distortion. A backwards point, perhaps. An above point. Whatever it was, the distortion wanted her there, and she wanted Sasha there, and so they followed where they were asked. 

Sasha was strong. Sasha was not giving up easily, and Helen could feel Sasha’s grip on humanity like a cord pulling on her, and was grateful. It was that much easier to keep Sasha if Sasha wanted to keep herself, and Sasha was coming with her for better or worse. Helen had asked, at one point, if Sasha wanted to leave, and Sasha had stared her down and told her no. They were in it together. 

Sasha  _ had _ always loved her lies. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The only content warning for this chapter is spiral typical madness.  
> So I've come up with my idea for nanowrimo and its a horror thingy about "the skin witch," who lives in the Appalachian mountains, owns a lot of moths, and occasionally eats people. It's got some old gods of Appalachia vibes. Anyway I'm thinking about posting it on Ao3 as an original story, but I have no idea, so would yall read it? I want to know if it sounds interesting at all.


	16. A thing at the desk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rosie?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's fall break for me, so I'm writing a ton of stuff. Also, I've already written and revised a lot of this, so I figure that I'll post every day until I get up to the point where I've stopped writing.

Shit. Shit shit shit shit. 

There was a thing in the institute and it was hurting Rosie. 

“No,” Jon thought, “No, it’s not hurting Rosie. Rosie is already dead and the thing is wearing her skin.”

He didn’t want to believe it. He didn’t, until Basira had run into the Archives panting, and deadbolted the door closed so that nobody could get in or out. He wouldn’t have believed Basira even then, if she hadn’t started talking to Tim about a stranger impersonating Rosie, and  _ Tim  _ had believed her, then told her that he couldn't know about any of it.

He resented the lack of trust he was being given, and he resented  _ Tim  _ for how he had changed since the worm attack. Jon had gotten paranoid, yes, but Tim had gotten  _ angry.  _ “Besides,” he thought, “Tim is wrong.”

You couldn’t kill the skin the monster was hiding in, and wait for the monster to die. You had to destroy the thing at the source of its power. Jon had a hunch he knew where that source was.

\---

“It is remarkably easy to buy an axe in central london,” Jon thought.

“It is remarkably easy to steal a fire hatchet,” Tim thought.

Jon headed for the second floor, and Tim headed for the first, both intent on their quests. 

Basira went in search of Martin. 

\---

Martin was crouched inside a closet, looking through the peephole, and waiting for Basira to leave. He wasn’t  _ stupid,  _ he knew that she was only there to distract him from what Tim was doing, and he  _ really  _ wasn’t in the mood for anther confrontation, so he was inside a stuffy closet, waiting for her to leave him be. 

He checked his watch. Eight minutes, until Tim was meant to pull off his grand plan of killing Rosie. He would have thought both Tim and Jon were crazy, was it not Basira who was running the entire operation. 

\--- 

Tim caught Not-Rosie while she was packing up her stuff to get going. Her-? No.  _ It. _

It caught sight of him and waved. 

“Hey, Tim!”

“Rosie!” Tim exclaimed, trying to hide his nervousness and his hatchet. “It’s been a while since I’ve talked to you, hasn’t it?”

The thing smiled. “It has been, hasn’t it? We need to catch up sometime, get lunch together.”

“Definitely,” Tim agreed. The conversation lulled, and panic set in. Tim had to keep Rosie distracted until the three librarians had packed up and left, and Rosie couldn’t leave with them. 

The thing made a move to leave, and Tim grabbed its arm, thinking wildly. “I needed to talk to you about-” Oh shit. He didn’t know. Quick, he needed to think of something, find something to keep her there, some topic of discussion she would like. “Basira!” He finally said, too loud and too relieved.

Not-Rosie quirked an eyebrow, looking confused, and almost…  _ delighted. _

“I need to talk to you about Basira,” he said finally. “She’s been acting, um, she’s been acting  _ weird.”  _ He paused, desperately trying to think of something to keep Not-Rosie with him. “I think she got bumped on the head last week while following up a case. She’s been different ever since.” Utter lies. But maybe, maybe they could stall the thing for just a  _ little  _ bit longer. 

“That’s a shame,” said the Not-Rosie.

“And,” said Tim, “I was hoping you could talk to her about it a bit?”

The thing turned. “I’ll make sure to bring it up next time she comes to the Institute.”

“Actually, she’s here right now,” Tim said. “Down in the archives. I was hoping you would come with me? Help stage an intervention.”

“I don’t think-”

“It’ll only take a minute.”

The thing sighed, and glanced at Tim. It looked hungry, but Tim did his best to ignore the crawling feeling in his gut. “Alright,” it said finally.

Perfect. This was perfect. A stairwell would be the best place to stage an attack, where nobody could see him and report him. Well out of the way from Martin and Jon, too. As the two of them headed towards the archives, Tim gripped his hatchet tighter, sweat making it slick against his hands.

\---

Basira couldn’t find Martin in the Archives. She’d called for him, peered around every shelf in the archives, and even desperately pretended to hurt herself, in the hopes that it would make him come running to help her. It didn’t work. But his bags were still at his desk, so he couldn't have gone home. Damn. She couldn’t find Jon, either, and although his bags were still in his office, that could mean he was anywhere. She hoped he was out of the Institute. He’d dealt with enough shit that she didn’t want to have to add a creepy creature pretending to be Rosie to his list. 

Against her better judgment, Basira went up to the library. If she was alone in the Archives, she didn’t have an alibi, and as a sectioned cop, the others wouldn’t exactly have her back if she was accused of anything. Daisy would have her back, but that was Daisy. The other cops watched out for Daisy because she was fierce and could do what they needed of her, and Daisy watched out for Basira, because they were partners.

\---

Martin breathed a sigh of relief. Basira had left. That meant that he could, slowly as ever, creak open the door of the closet and climb out, ready to stop whatever Tim had in store for Rosie. Basira would find him eventually, be furious that he hadn’t come when she called, but that was a problem for future Martin. Current Martin had to save Tim. 

Martin ran up the stairs, catching up with Basira, who was slowly making her way up to the library. They both collided with Tim and Not-Rosie, who smiled a sick smile of anticipation, hunger dripping off its face like drool. Tim raised his hatchet. Rosie lunged. The world dissolved. 

\---

Jon had his axe stowed safely in a bag he’d brought to work, but the handle was sticking out of the bag, and people were giving him weird looks as they left the building. Ah, well. He just had to  hope that axe handles weren’t that recognizable, and that nobody would report him before he destroyed the damned table. Sneaking into Artefact storage wasn’t  _ hard,  _ because there was a tunnel from his office all around the institute, and a door that led directly into the back of artefact storage. 

The hardest part of the journey so far had been the echoing footsteps that made him jump at every turn. It felt… unnatural. Like he was an intruder to somebody else’s home, but they wanted him there. Like he was following some sort of bait. Like he was being played. 

No matter. He was here for a reason, and that reason wasn’t to ruminate over control. 

He raised his axe, slammed it down on the table, and heard an echoing laugh. Before he could think, the table was in two, and the laughter enveloped him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No real content warnings this time, other than stranger stuff.


	17. A broken leg

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jon and Tim do not own the archive braincell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More additions to the "sad tim" collection!

The NotRosie felt the snap from a floor above it. The bars of the cage were being welded open, there was light shining through a hole in the ceiling, it was  _ free.  _ Gloriously free, not bound to a place that watched it or bound to a thing that used it. Truly free, to wreak whatever havoc it wanted to, wherever it wanted to. And the nuisance with the hatchet had fallen through a door, leaving the NotRosie to watch its prison be destroyed. 

There was no need for the human skin here. It left it at the door, and slithered under, inside, between, its limbs and amalgamation of everybody it had stolen before welded together, unnaturally sharp and shiny.

“Thank you,” it hissed at the silhouette that freed it. 

It was the Archivist. He looked up at it in horror, and it laughed, pure unrestrained love of being free and unpained. When it thanked the archivist for its freedom, it meant it. But gratitude is not becoming to a creature of misery, so it smiled, more teeth in its mouth than any human had, and it lunged. 

\---

Falling, falling, falling, and stopping in a hallway of portraits, all crooked, and all disproportionate. The laughter could be heard, even here, even in this mockery of a house. Tim held up his hatchet.

“Michael!” He screamed. 

A door appeared next to him, and the creature-  _ Michael-  _ appeared from within the hallways. “You’re much too fun to die,” it said. 

Tim swung his hatchet, hitting nothing but gell and air, and watching as the creature formed itself back into the shape of a human, laughing, _ laughing  _ all the way. “You can’t kill me,” it said. “You would have to rip the wallpaper into pieces, dismember me part by part.” It paused. “ A hatchet. And here I was, thinking only the archivist could be stupid enough to try to stop the stranger with an axe.”

Tim swung at a painting in the hallway, and it ripped in two. Michael doubled over, and made an inhuman screech, and  _ grinned. _ And it left, through a mirror that disappeared as soon as it walked through.

“Damn!” Tim yelled. He kicked the wall, which did nothing but hurt his foot. He looked back at the other two, standing behind him in the hallway.

“Right,” Basira said, “Let’s see what we can do.”

\---

Helen and Sasha felt the difference the minute Michael stepped out the door. They had felt it before, to be sure, when he fed, but not like  _ this.  _ Not this kind of emptiness, as if the spiral was uncertain, as if something that wasn’t meant to be inside had been taken. 

Sasha felt it first, but Helen knew what it was. She grabbed Sasha’s hand. “Run,” Helen said, and pulled the other woman with her to their completion, to what had been calling Helen for the months spent inside. 

The end was calling, and she could finally obey. 

\---

Feet were pounding, feet were pounding, and it all felt wrong. Helen was dragging her down the hallways, quickly, as if they were going to hit a deadline, and Sasha felt the empty dread permeate  her chest, threaten to pull her away, and she resisted it. 

Warms hands gripped each other, and Sasha made it her anchor, made her decision not to fade into oblivion. 

“Where?” She asked Helen as they ran. 

Helen paused. “It’s hard to explain,” She said. “Everything gets more… more  _ solid  _ around a point. As if it’s the center, but it’s not, not really. It’s just the space where more matter exists.”

Sasha frowned. “There’s the same amount of matter wherever you are. That’s how science works.”

“Science doesn’t work in here.” Helen paused. “Sasha, will you stay with me?”

“Yes! Yes, of course.”

Helen gripped Sasha's hand until both their knuckles were white. “I mean really. Will you choose not to give into it right now? Promise me.”

Sasha didn’t understand. Sasha didn’t understand most things inside the doors, but she knew Helen understood it, and that was enough. If Helen wanted her to stay,  _ needed  _ her to stay, no matter what that meant, Sasha was going to stay. “I promise,” she said. 

“Good,” Helen said. “We’re almost there.”

\---

Laughter. “That was very  _ stupid,  _ Archivist,” said a keening voice from beside him. Michael. 

“Dammit, Michael,” Jon yelled as he ducked between shelves, “I don’t have time for you!” 

“Quiet in the archives,” hissed the creature from somewhere, some place in front of him. “I love a game of hide and seek.” It paused. “You can hide, but you certainly can’t run, Archivist. I  _ will  _ find you, and I  _ will  _ take you.”

The shelves creaked, and the thing smiled at Jon’s terror.

“There you are, my Archivist. Do you think, if I take you, I will become an archivist? Do you think taking your memory will bend me and twist me into your image? Perhaps not. Perhaps it will merely serve to hurt me.”

Jon was backed against a wall, and the cruel imitation of Rosie was descending on him, playing with its food like a game of cat and mouse. A door creaked open next to him, and he made his own choice. Nobody takes being forgotten over the illusions. 

\---

Basira led the way. 

Not for any reason, other than that Tim wasn’t in a place to lead anything, and Martin was never one for taking the lead. The three of them walked through hallway after hallway, place after place, nudging and bumping the decor as they saw fit, looking for any way out. 

Had it been hours? Days? Months? Seconds? None of them knew, and none of them wanted to voice the delusions this place inspired. 

They continued walking. 

\---

Tim saw a face. No, not  _ a  _ face.  _ Sasha’s  _ face. Warped, running along with a woman Tim knew he’d seen somewhere, but couldn’t place the memory. She looked terrified, she looked the same, she looked like a lie. 

That’s what she was, right? This place was the very incarnation of lies. It wanted him to believe he could see his friend in here, and he wouldn’t fall for it. He didn’t want the hope it gave him, and he  _ didn’t  _ want to see Sasha in the glass again.

He couldn’t stop peering through the mirrors. 

Was it a compulsion, an obsession, a sense of ungotten closure? She  _ wasn’t  _ there, Sasha wasn’t with him in the house of lies, and he forced himself to beleive that.

He wanted to see her again, something more than warped glass and unheard voices.

\----

Sasha halted in her running. “Look.”

Helen stopped. “What?”

“It’s-” She paused. “No, it's not.”

“What was it, Sasha? It’s not stupid. Nothing in here is stupid.”

Sasha looked down. “I saw…. I saw Tim.”

“Tim… He was the one you knew for the longest, right?”

“Yeah. I worked with him in research.”

“And he’s here?”

Sasha faltered. “A trick- a trick of the light.”

“There is disruption in the corridors. Could it be your friend?”

“It could- it could be, but it’s  _ not. _ ”

“Why not?”

“He wouldn’t come in here.”

Helen looked at Sasha in concern. “Your call.” She said. “Do you want to look for him?”

“No- no,” Sasha said firmly. “I trust wherever you want to take us. And,” she said, “ I’m not condemning Tim to this.”

“Condemnation,” Helen thought, “Is such a loaded word.” But she stayed quiet, and led Sasha further down the hallway.

\---

Jon ran through the hallways, seeing shapes and people, and hearing distorted footsteps up and down each corridor. His eyes burned and his throat was dry, and he didn’t know what he was doing, or where he was going, and he was never going to get out of the halls, and he was never going to be able to save anybody, and- 

He ran into a door. 

Not through a door, but  _ into  _ a door. It hurt quite a lot, since he had previously been running as fast as he could through the hallways, and as soon as he was able to regain his bearings, he ran  _ through  _ the door this time. 

The laughter was gone, the colors were gone, and it was blissfully quiet. Jon clicked on his tape recorder, panting.

“I don’t know where in the tunnels I am, and I don’t know where the thing- the  _ Rosie  _ is but I’m going to keep the recorder on until-”

Screams. Hisses. Laughter. And the Not-Rosie was in front of him, opening it’s gaping maw. Jon tripped, and ran down a random tunnel. 

“Do you want me to tell you a story, my Archivist?” The thing didn’t seem out of breath at all. “If I call it a statement, will that make you receptive?” It laughed. “Very well. Here is the statement of a thing that has existed since the world began, and since  _ people  _ have existed. It lived among you, not one of you, but beside you, and nobody knew what it was. Sometimes, some days, one person would notice what it was, and it  _ liked  _ that. Not the being noticed, but the fear. So the monster kept creating the fear it loved. Taking skin after skin and living inside of it, waiting for the one who would know that it was not what it was. 

And then the monster was trapped. 

Inside a table, of all things, oh, the humiliation! It could not stray from its table, for it was tethered to the fractals the way a dog is tethered to a pole, straining against the leash. It did not like that, it wanted to be free of the awful table, but even as it was, the table was taken with the creature inside, and delivered to a home. You see, the monster had friends, others that loved fear the way it did, and it convinced these two to carry it around, and help it obtain the fear it so desperately needed. And one day, they delivered it to a temple, a temple with eyes too large, and secrets too hidden, and it could not inspire fear in the temple of sight. 

Until one day, it was set free! And the monster, it is  _ oh so thankful _ that somebody set it free from the table-prison, it could just  _ eat up  _ whoever let it out!”

Jon continued running, not paying much thought at all to where he was going, stumbling and tripping, and dashing through hallway after hallway, always with the awful voice rattling through his ears, talking about Sasha and his friends, and the dishonor it gave her.

The monster laughed, still following after Jon, hitting his sore spots, guilting him and teasing him until he thought that perhaps, giving himself to the Not-Rosie was the best option. He didn’t want to be here, he didn’t want to continue living like this and the creature showed him  _ exactly  _ why he shouldn’t. 

“I’m sorry, Sasha,” he muttered. “I’m sorry Tim, I’m sorry, Martin. I’m sorry Rosie, and Basira, and Daisy, and everyone else. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

There was a final laugh, there was a final scream, there were final tears, and there was a shifting of brick. 

The monster that had stood before him waiting for his final moments, enjoying them, was gone. Before him stood a graying man who looked like he’d been dug out of a grave twenty years ago, and never managed to wash himself up after that unfortunate encounter. 

“Jon,” he said, “I think it’s time we had a talk.”

\---

The corridors were confusing, and they got worse with each turn and nook and cranny. If these were Sasha’s last moments, well, shit. Tim didn’t envy her, but maybe this was a sick kind of quid pro quo. She feels the pain, and so does he, as punishment for letting her go. 

“Tim,” Martin said, “The tape recorder isn’t working properly.”

Tim looked at the tape recorder. He didn’t know how you could  _ see  _ static, but he did. “Throw it out,” he told Martin.

“These things are expensive!”

“We can use institute funds to buy another one,” Tim said. “I think having it with us right now is doing more harm than good.”

“Jon will be upset we didn’t record this,” Martin said.

“Jon can go fuck himself.”

Martin threw the tape recorder behind him without comment.

“If you two are done quarrelling,” Basira shouted from in front of them, “I think I found something.”

Martin and Tim ran up towards Basira, to see what she was looking at. When they got there, she was staring through a window with the blinds drawn back. 

“The world looks different.” She said. 

“Of course it looks different,” Tim said. “Outside isn’t trapped in a bloody mirror maze designed to make us go mad!”

“No,” said Basira. “It’s different. Calmer, I suppose. Not the same as our London.”

Martin touched the frosted glass. “We can’t go there.”

Basira snapped her head up. “No. No, I suppose we can’t.” She glanced at Tim. “We have to find a  _ door  _ if we want to get out.

\---

Helen and Sasha continued running, running for an almost endless amount of time. Faster, wilder, more desperate than before.

Helen said that time was of the essence if they were to achieve their goal. Sasha didn’t point out how time refused to work. 

They burst through a doorway that led into a circle filled with ever shifting spirals. Sasha would have called it a room, but that was like calling a meat pie a birthday cake. It hurt to look at it, and it hurt to move, but Sasha knew they were in the place Helen was intent on bringing them. She gripped Helens hand tighter than before. 

Helen turned to face Sasha. “We’re here,” she said. 

Sasha didn’t ask where  _ here  _ was. She knew. “What now?” She asked.

“Now,” Helen took a deep breath. “Now, we wait. Michael is the throat of delusion, but we are the cancer inside the heart. Isn’t this beautiful?”

“No,” Sasha wanted to say, but she held her tongue. Helen looked happier than Sasha had ever seen her, she looked like she had a place, and she looked like she had a plan. Sasha didn’t want to  burst Helens bubble. So she nodded, and held onto Helens hand until both of their fingers were white. Helen didn’t complain.

They stood, staring at the twisting walls, waiting for something Sasha didn’t know the shape of.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> content warnings: Spiral stuff, suicidal thoughts, body horror  
> Nobody's ever allowed to talk about my chapter lengths because it is the bane of my existence. Also, I'm sure all yall know this, but I'm not British, and no, I made absolutely no effort to make it sound like I was British since it would be much worse if I did try. It's a challenge already keeping slang I didn't even know was kentucky slang out of my writing, since I went to visit my aunt and uncle in california this summer and they adamantly told me some of my words aren't real, and now my dad's on me for using irregular grammar that's specific to here despite the fact we don't even live out in the boondocks, and I don't think I have an accent, but you can't win if your family is full of language professors that grew up out east and now criticize your language despite the fact that they raised you. Anyway! I have refrained from giving anyone a car since I know some things, except Basira and Daisy, and they have a car because you can't haul dead bodies around in a rental, or on the subway. Melanie and Georgie also have the what the ghost van!


	18. An answer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jon gets some answers, by virtue of.... :/

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jon gets some new trauma!

“Who are you?” Jon asked. 

The man paused awkwardly. “Jurgen,” he said.

“ _ Leitner?” _

Leitner blinked. “Yes- I suppose. Have you heard about me?”

“We’ve all heard  _ too much  _ about you, believe me,” Jon said. He laid the pipe he’d picked up in the tunnels somewhere on the table in front of him, and Leitner looked at it, accusingly.

“You think I pose a danger to you?” He asked.

“Yes. Yes, I do.”

Leitner leaned across the table towards Jon. “Fine, keep it with you, but we really can’t afford to waste time here.”

“So talk fast,” Jon said. 

Leitner sighed. “Can we at least have this conversation in the tunnels?”

Jon glared. “I’m not going back down there,” he said. “That thing- is it dead?”

Leitner leaned back from where he was against the table. “Unlikely. It’s very hard to kill one of those things, a NotThem. It’s trapped, and hopefully for a very long time.”

“Rosie? The real one.”

Leitners face arranged itself into something that looked like pity. “Was that her name? She’s… dead, most likely. There are places people can’t come back from. I’m sorry. Did you know her well?”

“No,” said Jon, “I didn’t. But it’s still-” He cut himself off, and sighed. “You aren’t what I was expecting.”

“I suppose not,” Leitner said. “My family emigrated when I was very young. English was always my first language. I used to adopt an accent sometimes when meeting people, a sort of personal joke, but truth be told, my Norwegian is terrible.” He paused. “Now, are you going to help me or not?”

Jon narrowed his eyes. “If you want my help, you answer my questions. Agreed?”

“Very well.” A tape recorder clicked on. “Statement of Jurgen Leitner, February Sixteenth, 2017. Statement begins.”

\---

“Very well. Are we done with your questions?”

“Just one more,” Jon said. 

“Well then, make it quick.”

“Do you know if Michael- the distortion- killed Sasha?”

“Who?”

“Sasha. She was another Archival Assistant, and she- she died back when the worms attacked. Do you have any idea who killed her? Is her body somewhere-” He gestured at the tunnels- “Somewhere down  _ here? _ ” 

Leitner sighed. “If it is, I haven’t seen it. But it wouldn’t surprise me if Elias was behind another murder.” He looked up. “ Oh, do you know about Gertrude?”

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry about her, too.”

Jon gritted his teeth. “Look, I know Elias is- well, a lot of things- but why kill Gertrude? What was the point? Why get his hands dirty?”

“I assume he found out we were trying to destroy the archives.”

“Gertrude was going to destroy the archives?”

“That’s why I need your help. I need you to help me break into Elias’s office, and get the files she left. Elias took them when she died,” Leitner said.

“This place… It belongs to one of  _ them,  _ doesn’t it?”

Leitner looked at Jon, unimpressed. “I think you already know the answer to that,” he said.

“The eye.” Jon stood up, his metal chair scraping against the concrete on the floor. “Don’t go anywhere. I’m going to- I need a cigarette.”

\---

How? How could it have possibly been mucked up this badly? Oh sure, his Archivist was marked by the stranger, but that was only if he was alive to tell the tale. Marked by the distortion too, if he wasn’t still inside. Elias was in a  _ terrible  _ mood already, and he was sure it could only get worse, with his whole archival staff missing somewhere, either in or out of this dimension. He thought they could get through it, marked by maybe a couple entities, but they had to survive the encounters first. Fucking Micheal. Elias never should have told the archival team that Michael was involved in Sashas disappearance. Stupid bastards had probably gone and antagonized him, and in return they were also thrust into the corridors. Elias massaged his temples, trying to think of a way he could salvage even part of this whole operation, when he walked into the archives. 

There was a man in his Archivist’s office, and the archivist was nowhere to be seen, although Elias could smell smoke coming from the storeroom, so he had a pretty good idea where Jon was at. 

_ Jurgen Leitner  _ was sitting at the desk in Jon’s office, a heavy metal pipe sitting in front of him, just waiting to be used. Elias blinked. Maybe the operation could be salvaged, after all. 

Elias slipped into the room. “Reach for a book and I will kill you,” he said. 

Jurgen turned as pale as a corpse.

“How much have you told him?” Elias asked.

“Enough,” Jurgen said.

“About Gertrude? Sasha?”

“No, I didn’t have the time. Or I didn’t know.”

Elias leaned over the desk towards Leitner. “You know, I wondered for so long who it could  _ be  _ down there. I really never thought it would be you.” Elias estimated he had roughly seven minutes before Jonathan came back in the room. Better make it quick, then. 

“How did you know I was here?” Leitner asked.

Elias considered. Should he tell the truth? “I didn’t,” Elias said. “But right now, you aren’t very well hidden. In fact, meeting  _ the  _ Jurgen Leitner!” He spread his arms wide. “What an honor!”

“Elias,  _ please.”  _

“What did you want from him.”

“The files. Gertrude’s, the ones you took after she died.” Leitner took a shuddering breath, trying to calm his nerves. No use. 

“Planning a little arson, are we, Leitner?”

“You  _ know  _ there’s more in those files. The stranger.”

“What was it  _ called _ ?” Elias asked. “Their ritual.”

“The unknowing.”

“Creativity  _ was  _ never their forte.” Elias chuckled. 

“Please, Elias. You of all people should want to stop them.”

“And we will. But-” He paused- “I don’t think we’ll need you for that.” He picked the lead pipe off the table, and watched the librarians eyes go wide with fear. Good. He needed some fear right  now. 

“Elias- what’s  _ he  _ going to think when he gets back in here?”

Elias considered, and then grinned. “He was always going to have to fly the nest at some point.”

“Elias-” Whack. Whack. Whack. 

Pity. It’s not that Elias  _ didn’t  _ like to get his hands dirty, but murders were so hard to clean up. Terribly messy, a pipe was, not at all like a gun. He was going to have to buy a new shirt after this.  Blood was impossible to get out of clothing. 

A dull thunk from the doorway. Elias looked up. “Oh dear, Jon, I believe you’ve dropped your lighter,” he said. 

“I should- I should go.” Jon said, and fled the room. 

\---

Basira just wanted to go  _ home.  _ Wherever that was now, because she'd been stuck in these hallways for a  _ very  _ long time. Tim and Martin were following behind her, although Martin looked utterly defeated, and Tim kept craning his neck to look down hallways and through mirrors, searching for something. 

This is what a person deserves when they get involved with the supernatural bullshit the Magnus Institute had to offer. 

She sighed, and continued walking. Then she stopped. There was a  _ door. _ A door that hadn’t been there seconds ago, she was sure of it, but there was a bright yellow  _ door  _ set into the side of the wall. 

“Tim, Martin,” She called. “Come look at this.”

“Is it like that window?” Tim asked.

“No,” she said, “It’s a door.”

The three stood in front of it, hoping someone else might turn the handle for them, until very slowly, Martin reached out and turned the handle. They walked out, into the familiar fluorescent light of the archives, and stopped. There was a  _ lot  _ of blood on the floor. 

Tim, almost unconsciously, walked towards the source of the blood, Jon’s office.  _ Obviously _ the source of the blood, since there was a man lying at Jon’s desk, blood pooling on the floor around him, and a heavy looking lead pipe sitting on the table in front of the man, also covered in blood. 

They stopped in front of Jon’s office. 

Tim spoke first. “Who the  _ fuck  _ is this?”

“We should probably go,” Basira said, “Since we don’t want to be found at the crime scene, and we don’t have any alibi.”

Tim stood for a second, then agreed. “I’m taking the day off for emotional trauma,” he said.

“You could take a year off for emotional trauma at this point,” said Martin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings: Motherfucking Jurgen Leitner, and Violence (Wonder why)
> 
> I'm super excited to write Basira's character arc, since that's what I'm working on writing rn. Fun fact the next chapter is "A deus ex machina"


	19. A Deus Ex Machina

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Georgie!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going to get hand cramps again if I keep writing like this, since the last week has been me flipping back and forth between the great Gatsby analysis and this.

Georgie did  _ not  _ sign up for this shit. In fact, she very specifically  _ refused  _ to sign up for this shit, when she started a cheesy ghost hunt podcast, poking fun at all the things she tried very hard  _ not  _ to believe in. And then her ex-boyfriend had to show up at her door, looking like he hadn’t slept in a week, and asked her for a place to stay. 

Come to think of it, that was actually pretty normal for Jon. He didn’t normally need a place to hide after being accused of two murders, though, so that was a low point. Fucking Magnus Institute. She was just trying to get through her life, maybe help Melanie be a bit less stir-crazy, and not get involved with anymore supernatural bullshit. The fear thing was enough, and even though she wasn’t afraid of what was going on, she wasn’t stupid. She knew it wasn’t something to get involved with. 

At that very moment, Jon walked through the living room door, rubbing his eyes. She looked up. “Feeling okay?” she asked.

“Actually, no.” he said. “A bit under the weather today.”

“Probably a trauma response,” Georgie responded. 

“Yeah.” He didn’t sound convinced.

“Listen Jon,” she said. “ You can stay with me, but there’s one rule. Don’t get me involved with the Magnus Institute. Any of it.”

“Right,” Jon said, sounding confused.

Georgie sighed. “A box of statements arrived for you. I don’t know what it’s for, or who sent them, but don’t try to get me involved with this.”

“Somebody sent statements?”

“Yeah.”

“Can I see them?”

“Be my guest.”

\----

Tim, Martin and Basira backed slowly away from the dead man and up the stairs. There was a blonde woman waiting for them at the top, muscular arms crossed, glaring down at them. 

Her gaze softened when she saw Basira. “Basira? Shit. Why are you here, this is a crime scene!”

“Long story,” Basira said. “Just- it wasn’t me. Or any of us.”

“What wasn’t your fault?”

Basira stared at Daisy. “Have you been down to the Archives yet?”

“No? Why?”

“Just…”

Tim cut in. “There’s a dead man in Jon’s office.”

“Jon’s the head Archivist,” Martin explained. 

Daisy’s glare returned. “Why is there a dead man in the archives?”

“I don’t know!” Basira said. 

“Shit,” said Daisy. “Come on, Basira, we need to get you out of here. Do you have an alibi?” 

“No, but-”

“Come on, we can get you one if we hurry.”

Basira extricated herself from Daisy. “We need to help them too,” she said, pointing at Tim and Martin. 

“Why?” Daisy asked.

“Because I was with them the entire time. If we don’t help them, they’ll be the only suspects.” 

Daisy groaned. “ _ Fine.” _

“Why are you here?” Basira asked. 

“Because someone called the police when they saw a fight in the stairwell, and I was the only sectioned officer available to come to the Institute.”

“Damn.”

“Yeah. Anyway, you said there was a dead man in the Archives?”

“There’s a lot of blood around him,” Tim said. 

“Helpful.” Daisy said, her tone suggesting that his input was not at all helpful. She looked at Basira. “You’ll be okay, right?”

“Yeah,” said Basira. “Go deal with the-” She waved her hand in the direction of Leitner. 

“This is fine,” Basira said. 

“No it’s not,” said Tim, but followed her into the library nonetheless. 

\---

Immediately after he read a statement, Jon’s headache subsided. He knew Georgie didn’t want him reading statements, but he  _ needed  _ to. He needed to figure out what was going on, and clear his name, and Georgie was out on a date anyway. Free food, she’d said, so he didn’t feel horrible about looking through some files. 

\---

Georgie was having an awful time. How could she think free food was actually  _ worth  _ this kind of conversation. (It was very nice food, though she had no idea if he’d even pay for it afterwards, based on how the date had gone so far.) It had gone south from the moment she told him she ran a ghost hunting podcast, and he’d went on a tirade about how “people don’t treat paranormal occurrences with the right amount of reverence in this day and age, instead opting to take the easy route, and dismiss them.” She hadn’t told him that she ran What the Ghost, but she was halfway to texting Melanie to call her and pretend a family emergency just to get her out of the restaurant. 

“Mm hmm.” Georgie made a noncommittal sound of agreement towards whatever he was talking about now. Something about devil appearances in the 1500s, and the way that people dealt with them now? She had no idea, and didn’t really care. 

As she was waiting for the date from hell to be over, she actually  _ did  _ get a call. Not from Melanie though, as she’d hoped. Basira. 

She stood up from the table. “This is important,” she announced, and left the table to leave.

Thankfully, her date didn’t follow her.”What is it, Basira?” She asked.

“Listen, do you know where Jon is?”

“No,” Georgie said, knowing perfectly well he was probably sitting on her couch right now.

Basira sighed. “Alright. Just- let me know if you see him around, okay?”

“Sure,” said Georgie, knowing she would do no such thing, and hung up on Basira. Then she called Melanie. 

Melanie didn’t answer, even though Georgie called her six times in a row, which was very worrisome. Maybe she didn’t have service? Gah, Georgie hoped Melanie hadn’t gotten herself caught up in something bad. 

\---

“Damn! She hung up on me,” Basira explained. “And she doesn’t know where Jon is, or at least she told me she didn’t.” 

“Do you think he’s, you know… alive?” Tim asked.

“Oh definitely,” Basira said. “Bastard’s too stubborn to die.”

Daisy emerged from the archives. “That  _ is  _ a lot of blood,” she said. 

“So?” Tim asked, “Who was it?”

“No idea.”

“Who did it?” Martin asked. 

“Jon, most likely,” said Daisy, while at the same time, Tim said “Elias.”

“Jon’s not a murderer,” said Martin.

“Yeah. Do you think he’s even strong enough?”

Daisy glared at Basira. You three have an alibi by virtue of  _ me,  _ and Jon doesn’t. That means it’s almost certainly him, and as soon as I can track him down, I can get a confession out of him.”

“Jon wouldn’t.”

“ _ Jon? _ ”

I don’t think he has the guts- or the muscles- to commit a murder.”

Daisy looked at the three of them and sighed. Then, she addressed Tim. “Alright, so why, in your  _ brilliant  _ mind, is it Elias?”

“Simple,”Tim said immediately. “He’s already killed one, maybe two people, so a third one would be right up his alley. 

“Wait,  _ what? _ ”

“He confessed to killing Gertrude in front of me, Tim, and Jon,” Martin supplied. “And Tim thinks he also killed Sasha.”

“But we don’t have evidence,” added Tim. 

Daisy looked concerned. “I’m going to add them both to the list of suspects,” she said. “But  _ only  _ because Basira is agreeing with you.”

“Thanks, Daisy,” Basira said. 

Daisy flushed. “I still think it was Jon,” she said. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings: Police corruption
> 
> I desperately want to finish this story before nanowrimo but it doesn't look like that's going to happen so I'm planning on taking a month long break during November


	20. A statement never given

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Melanie gets.... shot by a ghost.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really proud of this chapter and Yes I'm a slut for symbols and stuff so you know... nothing is an accident!

Melanie was on a plane to India. She vaguely wondered if it was a good idea to use her savings to fly across countries just for the possibility of finding something supernatural, but she  _ had  _ to know. She had to find something real. She got off the plane, and checked her phone. Shit. She had six missed calls from Georgie, and seventeen text messages. Definitely not good. 

Ah well, she could deal with it later if she lived. That was a big if. 

She pushed her way out of the airport, having brought nothing but a small carry-on bag, and immediately hailed a taxi to take her to her hotel. Couldn’t do shit carrying around a suitcase. 

She spent the next few hours in her hotel room, watching TV she couldn’t understand, eating sour patches she’d brought for the plane, and dutifully ignoring anybody who tried to contact her, especially Georgie.

She really liked Georgie, she did, but she could already imagine the response to her explaining that she’d gone to India to hunt down a train full of war ghosts. First, a sigh, where Melanie could practically see Georgie shaking her head through the phone. Then Melanie would snap back about being treated like a child, and Georgies voice would go harder. She’d first try to bring up all the reasons that Melanie shouldn’t go to another country, that she’d blown her savings, that whatever she was going to find wouldn’t help in the long run. Melanie would go red with anger at Georgies speech, and start to yell through the phone about how Georgie  _ never  _ understood how life was a war, how she’d fought to get where she was, how she’d fought to have a decent life. Melanie would call Georgie spoiled and privileged and tell her that she didn’t understand. Georgie would be quiet for a second, and then the conversation would become a real fight. Georgie would list off her mistakes, the way she’d had to have been bailed out, the way that this was just another stupid quest to prove she could be someone in the world, how Melanie was  _ always  _ screwing up, and  _ always  _ blaming the world for it. And Melanie would slam the phone down, and the night would end in tears for the both of them. No, Melanie wasn’t in the mood for that. 

She sighed and glanced out the window. Only five in the evening, but she might as well get an early dinner and prepare for her planned trespassing later that night. Melanie was antsy, but she wasn't sure if she was scared or excited. A little of both, perhaps. 

She passed the time looking at the sights, popping in and out of shops, and eventually deciding to buy Georgie a necklace as a thank-you for not being too mad about the stunt she’d pulled. A preemptive thank you. 

At around ten, everything began to lock up. That was when she figured it was safe to go to her real destination. She hailed a taxi, one of the few still out on the streets, and thanked heaven above that she didn’t look like a typical tourist and was able to get a taxi to stop for her. She had the taxi drop her off as close as she could get to the trainyard without looking suspicious, although he still looked at her funny and asked if she needed a ride back after she was finished. She said no. Better not to have any more witnesses.

She waited until the taxi was far away, and began to walk towards the gate. Damn it, she wanted to run, but she knew that would only draw more attention to herself, and she already looked different, no need to act different as well. 

The chain link fence was louder than she’d thought it would be, although it might have simply been the eerie silence surrounding her that made every noise jump out. She scaled it easily, and crouched, panting, behind a train car for a couple seconds to make sure nobody had heard her. When the coast was clear, she started walking, making sure to stay hidden between the rows of trains as she did, not even turning on her torch, despite the darkness. 

Yes, she stepped on more than one nail. Times like these were when she was glad to have invested in some nice leather boots. 

Finally, she was at the end of the trainyard, and just one glance at the cars in the lot made her certain she had found something. Train cars weren’t supposed to glow, even if you were the only one that could see the faint red light. 

She approached the wagon that called to her, hand shaking as she turned the handle. It was her moment, she would finally see something real. Something  _ real  _ real, not just fucked up, like it had been with Sarah. 

She opened the door.  _ Holy shit. _

Two men and a woman were sitting in the train car, not talking but playing a card game that she vaguely recognized. Some sort of rummy? The men were entranced in their card game, but the woman looked up, and the two of them met eyes. She was sitting on a haystack in the back of the carriage, glowing dimly golden, unlike the two men who glowed red, and her dress was ripped and stained with black blood. “Please don’t tell anyone,” Melanie prayed, to whatever god was up there. The woman smiled, and looked down. Melanie let out a breath she didn’t know she was holding. 

Holy shit, she had to get pictures! She had to prove this was real, she had to get video footage, she had to let the rest of the world know she wasn’t crazy!

The man on the left slammed down a card and laughed.

The man on the right scooped the cards on the table up in a fluid motion. 

Melanie pulled out her camera. 

And the serene smile on the woman’s face dipped into a sharp frown. 

There was a blessed beat of silence, and then everything went to shit. 

Quicker than lighting, the woman drew a gun that Melanie hadn’t even seen concealed between her petticoats. Cards went flying in all directions. Ace of spades, queen of hearts, six of clubs,  three of diamonds. The suicide king landed at Melanie’s feet.

She didn’t have time to ponder the sick symbolism before she fell with a stabbing pain in her right calf, crying out a string of garbled curse words. The two men were engaged in a brawl on the floor, but the woman just stood there, her gun drawn. Melanie limped- crawled out of the car as quick as she could, and dialed 999. Maybe if she hadn't done that, everything would have been fine. Then again, maybe if she  _ hadn’t  _ done that, she’d be dead. 

The police arrived in an amazingly quick amount of time, but the shock had worn off by then. Or perhaps it had set in? Whatever it was, Melanie was screaming about ghosts and bullets and whatever else by the time they arrived to give her medical attention and arrest her. 

She’d woken up half the street, and all of them were holding video cameras up to the crazy lady screaming about ghosts. Fuck. What would Georgie say? Despite that, her leg  _ hurt  _ and it was bleeding, and the emergency doctors were having to strap her down to deal with it. On some level, she understood why they had to do what they did, but it was all a blurry, terrifying mess of her own loss of autonomy. 

She barely remembered the hospital. Same with the police, as they let her out once she let them know she was leaving that morning. In fact, she could barely remember anything until she stumbled back to her apartment, and crashed in an armchair by the door. 

Her neck hurt even more when she woke up, due to sleeping in that position, and she had… 47 texts? 

Weirdly also, not all of them were from Georgie. Nope, about every one of them was from a different person, asking her about, she squinted, a  _ video _ ? To her knowledge, she hadn’t recorded any new ghost hunt material since her crew broke up. She wasn’t confused any longer after she clicked the link a former associate had so kindly provided.

Fuuuuck. 

“Ghosts! In that train car, I’m telling you there’s something in there, it  _ shot  _ me!”

“Ma’am, please stay still-”

“No, there’s ghosts in the trainyard, there’s-”

The video cut off. So  _ that  _ was what everybody had been talking about. She groaned, and plodded to her bedroom to get some  _ real  _ sleep. Much too early to deal with going viral as “Crazy Ghost lady Melanie King goes FERAL on the police, watch them kick her ASS!”

Oh. She didn’t even want to think about what the comments section held for her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings: gun violence, relationship issues (not a lot but you know safe than sorry.)
> 
> This chapter was so much fun and I'm deep into writing Melanie in her arc!!!


	21. A war

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Helen and Sasha.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A pretty short chapter today, because I had some Helen and Sasha to get out.

Sasha didn’t know how long the two of them had been in the odd place where space and time seemed to stretch out longer than was normal, but she didn’t need to ask Helen. She’d get the same response as always, “Time doesn’t work.”

She was  _ tired  _ of being caught in the castle. Helen, to be honest, was the only thing that made it bearable. And her mission to get back to her friends, that was what stopped her from fading. 

Sasha sat in a mahogany armchair, tapping her feet impatiently, and Helen stood pacing back and forth. Right now, she was on the horizon watching a green sunset in the distance. Maybe when the two had just arrived in the Center, she would have been terrified, but now, this was simply a part of life. Sometimes the Center was vast and near-endless, and sometimes, it was barely the space of a closet, leaving just enough room for the two of them, crowded together behind hangers.

Sasha didn’t know which was more terrifying. 

Was it worse to barely be able to see her anchor, walking far in the distance, or was it worse to be stuck together as the walls shifted inwards, the closeness that she  _ wanted,  _ but not on the terms of the spiral? 

Madness left far too much time for self-reflection. 

She wanted to call out to Helen, to have another person there to talk to, but Helen looked to be having fun on the horizon, making snow angels and letting the sky destroy her. Sasha wished she had the talent Helen possessed, to create things in the void. At the very least, she wouldn’t be as bored and anxious all the time. 

She contented herself with watching Helen's joy. 

\---

Helen had seen what the distortion had to offer her, and she had accepted. She wasn’t scared, for she knew all the two were waiting for was an opening to finally claim what was theirs. Sasha though, Sasha she was scared for. Helen had become kin with the madness, and she was able to control parts of it, or at least pretend she was able to do so. But Sasha was still helpless without her link to reality, and that scared Helen. 

If it took the last of her strength, Helen  _ would  _ keep Sasha with her. 

Time wasn’t real, but Michael hadn’t noticed them yet. Or at least, he didn’t try to confront them in the Center. That worried Helen, for it meant that when there was a knocking on her door, the confrontation would be ever worse than she imagined. 

\---

Michael was at war with himself. He should have never left, he should have never let the instability enter his corridors when he trapped the Archivist inside himself. And now, there was a goddess hammering on his forehead, demanding he let her out by splitting open his own skull. And any moment, if he let his guard down, Athena would rise from within him. His very manifestation wanted him gone from the world, and that,  _ that  _ was terrifying. She was a creature of fear, but even creatures built of their own kind of fear can feel fear of another find. 

Michael hadn’t tried to approach it’s Center yet. He knew they were there, that they were waiting for it, that they wanted it to approach and have the final confrontation, and it wasn’t an idiot. Maybe naive, maybe trusting, but not an idiot. 

It was going to let the siege continue until it was unbearable. It was going to continue  _ being  _ for as long as it possibly could.

\---

Helen was not having  _ fun.  _ She was not exploring her newfound domain. No, Sasha may be lying in wait for something she didn’t see coming, but Helen was lying in wait to kill the roaming bull in the maze. Or perhaps, she was the Minatour and  _ Michael  _ was poor, doomed Theseus without a red thread. 

Either way, she was going to have to talk to Sasha about what they were doing one way or another. She sighed, and went back to a medieval round table, disposing of the powdery white fields. “Sasha,” she said. Sasha looked up, confused but waiting to see what Helen had to say. “Do you know why we’re here?” She asked.

Sasha traced the stone on the table with her fingers. “Yes,” she said. She looked up at Helen with a lopsided grin. “We’re waiting to buy a house.”

The corners of Helen’s mouth quirked up. “Ugh, don’t remind me of that  _ awful  _ real estate agent I was.”

“But I’m not wrong,” Sasha said. “We’re waiting so we can take this place as our own.”

“Yeah.”

“And that entails something that you’re hesitant to tell me about.”

“Yeah.”

“We may be trapped in the literal manifestation of lies, but that doesn’t mean you can’t tell me the truth, Helen.” Helen looked guiltily down. “I won’t be mad,” said Sasha. 

Helen took a deep breath. “Michael is waiting in the corridors,” she said. No response from Sasha. “Sometime, he’s going to realize that he can’t access his Center anymore, and that he’s not part of the distortion, not  _ really.”  _ She stared at Sasha. We’re not going to be blameless anymore.”

“Were we ever?”

“Helen Richardson was. Helen Richardson was just trying to make it through another day, and got caught up in a web of lies and magic.”

Sasha smiled. “Sasha James was always too curious for her own good. Sasha James chose to jump into a door, and now she needs a way out so she can help her friends. Exitus Acta Probat. The outcome justifies the deed.”

Helen closed her eyes. “Helen doesn’t care,” she said softly. 

“Sasha never did.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning is just spiral. 
> 
> Next chapter is about Daisy.


	22. A field of Daisys

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jon meets Jude Perry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Having to write college applications? Ugh. At least I've got a couple that have flat out told me I'm getting in, and fingers crossed that I can get into a California college. Anyway if I update less frequently, that's why, because these have to be done and I hate it.

Daisy wasn't satisfied at all. So Basira said it wasn’t Jon, great. She’d known the man for all of a month, and  _ somehow  _ he had managed to convince her that he wasn’t a threat in all of that time. It was suspicious, that’s what it was. She’d just have to keep her investigation on the down low, not bring up the obvious signs of Stockholm syndrome. In the meantime, Elias was still a major suspect. As suspicious as she was of Jon, Elias just- she didn’t like it. He felt  _ slimy  _ to be around. Maybe she shouldn’t trust her gut as much as she did, but it was hardly  _ wrong _ . 

She called the number Tim gave her, and heard the smug little bastards voice on the voicemail. “This is Elias Bouchard, I am not available right now, but if this is about the Magnus Institute, please call the secretary, Rosie.”

Damn. Creepy shit couldn’t even be  _ interesting.  _ His office was on the… third floor? Third floor. Before she could think about what a horrible idea she was making, she was on the third floor, rapping smartly on the door. He opened it. “Elias Bouchard,” she said, smiling sharply. “What a pleasure to meet you.”

“Alice Daisy Tonner.”

“Yes. Wanna tell me how you knew my name?”

“No.”

“Can I come in?”

He opened the door. “Be my guest.”

Somehow being inside felt even more disconcerting, as if something was watching her, and she couldn’t find what it was. Whatever. She was here to ask the questions. 

“Elias Bouchard. You know something, and I want to know what it is.”

“Very well. You’ll have to be more specific than that. I know a lot of things, and I’m not inclined to share them all with you.”

“Did you kill the man in Jon’s office?”

“Even if I did, do you think I’d outright admit it to a police officer one step from going off the rails?” Daisy glared. “No,” he lied. But do  _ you  _ have any idea who was killed?

“John Doe,” She said. “No records, no information on him.” Elias chuckled. “Something  _ funny?”  _ Daisy asked. 

“Nothing,” said Elias. “Just remembering an old joke.”

“Right,” said Daisy. “Any idea where Jonathan Sims is? Any leads? Any whereabouts?”

“I do,” he said. Daisy blinked in surprise, waiting for more information. After a second, it became clear he wasn’t going to willingly give out any information, she asked “Well?”

“Just wondering,” he said, drumming his fingers on the desk, “Is it worth it, operating the way you do?”

She straightened up. “Answer the question.” She bit out. 

“Does the lack of oversight make up for the lack of support?”

“Answer. Me.” she said. “What do you know about the whereabouts of Jonathan Sims?”

“Everything,” he said, “But I don’t think I’m going to tell you any of it.”

“I can take this down to the police station, you weird little freak.”

“But I don’t think you will.”

“Watch me. You’re still a prime suspect for the murder.”

She looked her in the eyes, longer than was normal, until her skin was squirming. “Do the rest of the precinct know?”

“Know what?”

“Know how you deal with these situations.”

She shifted on her feet. “They know enough. We get a call, they send me down here, and it all gets cleared up.”

“And,” said Elias, “Nobody else gets involved if you keep your investigations far away. Except, not having a partner has made you sloppy.” Daisy stopped, made idle threats as he explained to her what had happened to Calvin Benchly. All of it, all of the horrible details came pouring back out, rubbing raw in her mind as tears streamed down her face, unable to do anything but  _ listen.  _ She told him to stop, he didn’t. She told him he’d made his point, he didn’t seem to care at all, while the stupid smug smirk lay on his face, reveling in her pain. He stopped, eventually, and let her storm out of his office, a mess, while letting her know he wouldn’t tell her  _ anything  _ about Jon. 

One thing she had learned though: She was set on the wrong course. Now, she didn’t  _ care  _ whether or not she was able to arrest Jon, because it was obvious that Elias was the one to go after. She should have trusted Basira from the get-go. Despite not being a cop anymore, they were still partners, and that meant trust. She hadn’t given Basira the trust she should have, and although she was regretful of that, there was only one way to make amends, and that was by trusting Basira  _ now,  _ about this. 

She went straight down to the archives to tell Basira what she- no, what they all needed to know. 

\---

“It’s Elias.”

“Really?” Tim asked. “You believe us?”

“I believe Basira,” Daisy said, “And I trust my gut. And I  _ know  _ that this one is Elias.”

“So…” Martin asked, “does this mean Jon can come out of hiding now?”

Daisy’s head snapped around to face Martin. “Jon’s in hiding? You know where?”

Martin’s face went through a myriad of emotions. Distress, anger, fear, and finally settled on betrayal. “No,” he said. 

“Give it up,” Daisy said, “I can still pin this on you.”

“ _ Daisy.” _

_ “Basira.” _

Daisy groaned and slammed her handcuffs back on the table, making Martin flinch. “If he knows something, anything that could be of use, he has to tell me. Anyway, we don’t work together anymore.”

Hurt flashed over Basira’s features. “No, we don’t,” she said. “But please don’t hurt Martin. Or Jon.”

“He’s stockholm-syndromed you, Basira.”

Basira crossed her arms.  _ “Or,  _ he’s innocent.”

Martin piped up. “So is there a way we can get Elias arrested?”

“Hard,” said Daisy. Tim mouthed  _ I told you so  _ in Martin's direction. 

“But not impossible, right?”

Daisy let out a breath. “Not impossible.”

Tim held up his phone. “If I call him, are you going to trace the call?” Daisy glared. “Fine, fine,” Tim said. 

\---

Jon was not having a great time. The statements he had been sent led him down a rabbit hole of information, so that now, he was sitting in a coffee shop in front of a woman steaming with anger. Literally steaming. Jude was like that. 

Right now, though, she was just laughing at him, which was both distracting and annoying. “Something funny?” he asked. 

Uh,  _ yeah,”  _ she said.

Jon gritted his teeth. It was going to be a very long afternoon, continuing like this. “Care to share?”

“I think it’s obvious.”

Jon pinched the bridge of his nose, and looked down. To his surprise, he had two missed calls from  _ Tim  _ of all people. Should he take the call, or should he talk with Jude? Slowly, he looked up at her. “Can I take this?” he asked, holding up his phone. 

Jude leaned back in her chair. “I mean you  _ can,  _ but no guarantee that I’ll still be here when you get back.” “Right,” he said, weighing his options. He could return Tim’s call now, or he could get some information. 

It seemed like an obvious decision, until his phone started ringing again. The name on the screen? Tim Stoker. 

He was going to take the call.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: Police corruption, Elias typical brain violation, Jon has to deal with a lot of shit that I don't know how to tag for.  
> I don't like Daisy. Can you tell? Don't worry, I still have a very interesting plot arc for her :)


	23. An eventuality

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elias is a bastard, and Melanie is desperate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm having fun! :)

She was sure everybody knew her name now, she was out of a job, and she was quickly running out of money. 

S o Melanie King was at the Magnus Institute again, steaming with anger and desperate for one last chance to prove herself. 

Rosie wasn’t at the desk to check her in, and it seemed that Elias hadn’t gotten anybody to fill the position yet, so she strolled down to the archives. Maybe she’d find Elias and apply to be the secretary. Wouldn’t be the  _ worst  _ job she’d ever had. 

“Jon?” She called. Instead, Martin popped his head out from between the shelves. 

“He’s not here.”

Melanie bit back in annoyance. Losing her temper at the people she wanted help from would only be worse for her. “When will he be back, then?” 

Martin paused. “We don’t know. It’s been a bit hectic down here, what with the worms and the-” he fidgeted- “Other stuff.”

“Right,” she said. “Where is he?”

Tim came up behind her. “On the run from the police,” he said. 

“What?”

“Crazy, right?” Tim said in mock sympathy. “Totally normal- well, mostly normal guy gets a job doing spooky archiving, and all of a sudden he  _ sees  _ something in the files, and goes off the deep  end.” Tim shook his head. “Tragic, really.”

Melanie looked at Martin for confirmation. “Alright, yes, he’s in hiding. But he didn’t commit any of the murders.”

“Who did then? Wait- actually- I just need to do some research.”

Tim spread his hands, indicating the whole of the archives. “Be my guest, then.”

Melanie was well on her way to do some more research, when she bumped into the head of the institute, creepy little bastard that he was. “Hello, Melanie King,” he said. She took a deep breath, reminding herself that if she was going to ask for a job, she had better be nice.

“Hi, Mr. Bouchard,” she said, smiling. “I actually had a question for you, if you would entertain me for a moment?” She paused, and then continued onward. “I noticed that Rosie’s been gone from the receptionist desk for a while, and was wondering if you needed somebody to work the desk. I have a lot of experience in customer service, as well as reception, so I’d be a good fit for the job. If you need somebody, that is.”

He paused, smile disappearing from his face as she waited anxiously. “How would you like to work in the archives, Melanie?” He asked. “I know you have a lot of experience with the paranormal, and with no time at all we can get you up to speed on research. You have extensive knowledge on the paranormal, which would be a great benefit. 

Relief flooded her chest. She wouldn’t be stuck at the desk, and she would get to learn about real supernatural encounters. A dream job. “Yes-” she breathed- “Yes, of course! I’d love the job!” 

He smiled at her again. “Good. Then let's go to my office to get the paperwork hashed out. Am I correct in assuming you will be able to start work tomorrow?”

“Yeah,” she said, and followed him up the stairs. 

\---

“Tim?”

“Hey, boss! We got some good news!”

“Tim, I’m in the middle of something-”

“Aren’t you always,” Tim said. “But listen. We haven’t got your name cleared quite yet, but it’s safe to come back to the archives. Nobody’s going to be actively hunting you down, so for now, you can return to work.”

Jon’s breath caught in his throat. “That’s great Tim, but- I have to- I- I’ll talk to you later, okay?”

“Whatever.”

Jon hung up, and strode back to where Jude was sitting. Or at least where she used to be sitting. In her place was a charred note, soot stained and nigh illegible.

“Waiting bores me,” it read. “If you really want a meeting, you’ve got to come where I am. Much higher stakes, but if you really want this meeting so bad, you’ll come.” Below was scrawled an address. He looked it up on google maps and found nothing but countryside, but countryside was something. 

This time, he wouldn’t miss his chance. 

\---

Tim slammed his phone down on the desk. “He’s got a  _ meeting  _ or something. Bet he’s already started applying to new jobs,” Tim scoffed. 

“What, with his record?” asked Basira. “No way anywhere else would even consider him. 

“Hey,” said Martin, “Where’s Daisy?”

Basira sighed. “She set her mind on a course, and damn it if she’s going to follow that course through to the end. She’s decided to find something incriminating that she can use against Elias. No, I don’t think it’ll go well. She’s strong, she’s smart, but he’s already proved he can get the better of her.”

“But Jon  _ can  _ return to the archives, right?” Martin asked.

“Yeah,” said Basira, “Yeah, he can, but you guys will want to keep an eye on him. He’s not cleared, I just convinced Daisy that he’s not worth it yet.”

“Right,” said Tim. “In the meantime, there’s this thing I’ve been researching. Gertrude called it the unknowing.”

“Let’s have a look,” said Basira, and the three of them bent over Tim's notes. 

\---

Daisy was strong, she was smart, she was capable, and she wasn’t going to be thrown to the ground by an old man that knew a worrying amount about her life, damn it.

She was going to find a way to get him locked up for a very long time, and barring that, she was going to kill him. And yeah, she knew it wasn’t logical, but she trusted Basia more than she’d like to admit, so she was at the woman's request, hunting down the wrong man. Elias was an absolute ass, but she didn’t think he was the killer. Didn’t have the disposition for it. Jon, on the other hand, had proven himself to be more than capable of convincing a whole team of people that he was innocent. She was going to prove them wrong if it killed her.

Okay, so maybe sneaking into the tunnels underneath the Magnus Institute to hunt for signs of Elias wasn’t the best idea. The things scared the fuck out of her, and she didn’t enjoy the persistent feeling that she was being encroached on. No, that she was the one encroaching on somebody else's territory. 

Suck it up, buttercup. Or in this case, a different kind of flower. She shined her torch at the ground, looking for clues, but all she found were more worm corpses and ramen cups. Ugh, had the man living down here even bothered to clean up? Obviously not. 

Then she smelled the dried blood. The rotting corpse. Faint, imperceptible to anybody that wasn’t as skilled as her, but she followed it. It took her hours until she got to a place where the smell was unbearable, where she could no longer breathe through her nose, until she had to cover her mouth with her shirt. 

Was the payoff worth it? 

A corpse. 

She’d known that, but she hadn’t known what the name tag around the neck of the woman would say. Gertrude Robinson. Decaying in the tunnels under the institute, in an empty room where  there should have been tapes in a corner. The police had taken the tapes, right? Did the police still  _ have  _ the tapes? That was a question that needed answering now. 

Another person might have been trapped for hours longer, but Daisy was good at mazes, and got out of the institute and into downtown london in a matter of minutes. 

She needed those tapes.

\---

Elias led Melanie up to his office. “You were in charge of ghost hunt UK, correct?” He asked. 

Melanie’s heart sunk in her chest. No way was she getting a job if he’d seen her breakdown. “Yeah,” she said, “But it dissolved a while ago.”

Elias frowned. “Pity. I did enjoy it. But I think you have the capacity to do so much more, working with the Magnus institute.” He motioned for her to have a seat across from him. “Now, these are the papers you’ll need to read through and sign in order to set up your position. If you notice, there are flexible work hours, reasonable pay, and the archives have stellar job security. If you enjoy paranormal research, it’s practically a dream job.”

“Except for the worms,” said Melanie. 

Elias sighed. “Rest assured that there won’t be any more unfortunate worm encounters in your tenure here. If you’re worried, the job has plenty of benefits, and an excellent policy on medical leave and payment. If you get attacked in the institute, we do cover the entire hospital visit.”

Melanie paused in her signing of the papers. “There aren’t… many encounters like that, are there?”

“Not unless Jonathan sends you to break and enter, which I know nothing about and do not plan to get involved in. Now, are you going to finish the paperwork?”

“Yeah,” said Melanie, “Yeah, can I ask a couple of questions about the institute first?”

“Be my guest,” said Elias.

“Does most of the institute believe in the paranormal?”

Elias blinked. “Yes, most people that devoted their lives to studying the paranormal believe in it.”

“So was Jon just an exception?”

Elias gritted his teeth. “He’s become much more receptive to the possibility of the supernatural since the worms.”

“I would imagine so. You said the institute had great job security. How long do I need to work here until I get access to it?”

“Not the  _ institute,  _ Ms. King. The  _ archives.  _ Every archive worker has job security from the moment they start work there, along with extensive sick leave. Although I am technically your boss, I am  the CEO, and therefore any questions about working in the archives will need to be directed to Jonathan. He’s much more directly involved with the assistants.”

“Once he gets out of hiding?”

“Yes. For now, we've had Tim and Martin handling the archives well enough, but they could use another set of hands, and that’s where you come in. If you have any more questions, feel free to direct them to other members of the archival staff, and, barring that, to me. Ah, I see you’re done with the papers.” Elias reached his hand out and took Melanie's signed forms. “I'll get you in the system by tomorrow, and you’ll be on the payroll for next month. Would you like me to show you around the archives, or do you want some of your new coworkers to help you out?”

“Um-” said Melanie, “Yeah, I think I can get down there and have Martin show me around.”

“Good!” said Elias. “I look forward to working with you.”

“Good,” said Melanie. Man, was he creepy. She hoped she never had to go up to his office again. Something about him made it seem like he had a skull sitting in his desk and was just waiting for her to leave so he could begin to stroke it lovingly. “Okay, no, that’s a bit over dramatic,” she thought. Lots of old men gave off creepy vibes, and most of them weren’t the kind to keep bones in their desks. Still. 

\---

“So, the unknowing,” said Basira. “Doesn’t sound good.”

“No shit,” said Tim. 

“How do we stop it?” asked Martin.

“Well,” said Tim, “That’s what we really need to figure out. Gertrude here-” he tapped a couple of tapes he’d stolen from Jon’s office- “thought that the best way to stop a ritual was with dynamite, and I, for one, am inclined to agree.”

Basira wrinkled her nose. “Dynamite? If anything, I’d use C4.” 

“Okay, Ms. Explosive expert. It’s the  _ principle  _ of things.”

“What if we kill real people?” asked Martin. “I mean, not just clowns. We don’t want a big enough explosion to hurt passerbys, right?”

Melanie walked in. “Hi?” she asked. Basira looked up and waved, but otherwise went back to staring at the files. “I got hired here,” Melanie said. 

“ _ Why?” _

_ “ _ What the fuck?”

“Does she even have the qualifications?”

There was a long pause. “Do you want to help us blow up some evil clowns?” asked Basira.

“Is this normal for you guys?” asked Melanie.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CWs: Elias is a bastard, planning for violence.  
> Hey yall, I'm gonna keep trying to update this since I have a plan and a lot of chapters already written but also I just figured out how to make loaded dice and I'm super excited and it's super time consuming. These end notes really are just a place for me to ramble about hobbies, huh.


	24. A shattering

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lots of things happen. Jon meets Jude. Jon meets Nikola. Jon has a shit day. Helen and Sasha are Soft.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So that episode today, huh? I feel really validated in the way I write the spiral right now, and I realized I hadn't updated for a while, so here goes! Also. I looked over this chapter again and realized that it's one I liked where Stuff Happens, so I hope y'all like it too! Plus I've been stuck in a tricky part right now writing this, but I think it's only a little bit before I get to hurt people again!

Helen was getting antsy, anybody would have been able to tell. And Sasha, who had been around Helen and Helen only for years, could  _ definitely  _ tell. The Center was the space of a small living room now, couches in an odd starlike shape around the room, made out of something that distinctly wasn’t any known couch material. It felt gooey, and although you weren’t sticking when you stood up, if you sat for too long, you would begin to melt into the cushions that were not cushions. 

Helen and Sasha were having tea. Or at least pretending, Sasha wasn’t completely sure if there was anything other than spiders in the teacup, but it tasted like nutmeg, so she continued raising the glass to her lips and sipping from it.

“Never have I ever gone to a christian church,” Helen said. 

Sasha snapped her fingers. “Dammit.”

“Really?” Helen asked, mildly interested. “You don’t seem like the christian kind. 

“I don’t go anymore,” Sasha said, “But I used to go every Sunday with my parents. It had a good daycare program, and they could only get access if they at least pretended to be members.”

“ _ That  _ sounds more like you,” Helen said, smiling. 

“Alright,” said Sasha. “Never have I ever owned a fitted suit.”

Helen laughed. “Babe, we’re all poor here. I like this place more than having to go one more day at my job.”

Sasha tried not to shudder at the unexpected use of the word babe, and took another sip of her- juice, was it? Tasted spicy now. 

“Never have I ever read Great Expectations,” said Helen. 

Sasha slammed down her teacup with a force that would have broken the china if it hadn’t embedded itself in the table. “Fucking lucky!” she exclaimed. “If I have to hear one more word of Pip  mooning over some asshat girl who’s a fucking  _ tool,  _ I’m gonna  _ lose it. _ ”

“You struck me as the type that would talk about how ‘wonderfully poetic and revolutionary the text was,’” mused Helen.

Sasha pointed a finger at Helen. “You take that back. You take that back  _ right now.  _ I have not, and will  _ never,  _ enjoy anything Charles  _ fucking  _ Dickens writes.”

“I liked A Christmas Carol,” remarked Helen. 

Sasha shook her head. “Tragic. Get well soon.”

“Damn. Vicious.”

Sasha smirked. “Never have I ever been eaten by Michael.”

“Yes you have! You’re inside him right  _ now!”  _

“Nah. He said he wanted to be friends. He tried to eat  _ you.  _ This is just a misguided attempt at friendship.”

Helen scoffed. “Yeah, right. I found you crying in a room, all but faded. That counts as being eaten.”

“You owe me five dollars. You mentioned the Thing.”

“What, the room? Only because you’re claiming he never tried to eat you, just because you had a choice of whether to jump through the door.”

Sasha gestures vaguely at herself with the teacup. “Sasha is friend,” she said, imperiously. “Not food.”

“Sasha can be both.”

“You don’t eat friends, Helen!”

“You do if you’re really good friends. Or you know, into that.”

Sasha, who had taken a large gulp of her- what was it? Blue now. That was something- spit it out on the table, doubled over in laughter and coughs.

Helen rushed over to her side. “Shit Sasha, was that too much?” Helen patted her on the back. “You’re alive, right?” Sasha only responded by burying her face into Helen’s shirt, and gripping her sleeves.

“Michael-” she coughed- “Is not- that kind of- friend.” She sat up, wiping at her eyes. “Oh damn. Oh damn, bleach that out of my brain right now. Evil Helen. Helen is evil.”

“Oh come on, you love me.”

“So? You’re still awful.”

The two women sat in silence together, sinking into the couch, until Sasha sobered the tone of the room. 

“Helen, what’s coming?”

Helen took a deep breath and closed her eyes. “I don’t know, Sasha. I know it’s close, but I don’t know what  _ it  _ is.”

“Yes, you do.” said Sasha.

“Fine,” said Helen, opening her eyes to stare at Sasha. “I have an idea. I don’t know if I’m right, but can you trust me?”

“Always.”

“Then I can’t tell you. I’m worried, Sasha. I’m worried that where I’m going you can’t follow, and I’m worried that telling you will make it harder for you to follow.” Helen squeezed Sasha’s hand. “I could do this without you, and that’s terrifying. I could continue my journey without you there, but I don’t  _ want  _ to. Please, Sasha. I promise I’ll make it clear, but not right now?” The last part of her words were said questioningly, as if Helen was just waiting for an ultimatum, for rejection. But to her surprise, Sasha looked down and sighed. 

“Tell me  _ something,  _ Helen. I don’t care if it’s not what’s going to happen, but I want to know something about this. Your plan.”

“I don’t have one. I’m following the waves, letting them push and pull me.”

“Fair enough,” said Sasha, and leaned her head on Helen's shoulder to enjoy the togetherness found even in a hellscape.

\---

Basira walked down to the archives at eight o’clock sharp, and was greeted by a grumpy Melanie, an angry Tim and a nervous Martin. 

“Hey guys,” she said. “I work here now.”

“What the fuck.”

“Didn’t Melanie just make this mistake?”

“Here I was thinking you had at least one braincell.”

“Okay,” said Basira. “First of all, I’ve been falling behind on my rent ever since I quit the police. Second, I’m here all the time anyway. Why not get paid for it?” Basira was met with silence. 

“Well,” Tim broke the silence, “My first year in the archives I got eaten by worms, we fought an evil creature moonlighting as Rosie, and now we’re figuring out how to stop the apocalypse, so yeah, this is a  _ great  _ job.”

“Basira,” Martin said, his brow furrowing, “Where’s Daisy?”

Basira frowned. “I’m having lunch with her later today. Why?”

“I saw her when we were leaving. She was standing with… Elias. I was wondering if you knew anything about that.”

Basira almost laughed. “I promise you, Daisy’s not working with him. Whatever she’s planning on doing right now, I don’t think it’s any of your business.” Martin didn’t respond, only looked thoughtfully at the ground until Tim brought the conversation back to the apocalypse on hand. 

“So regardless of Basira’s bad decisions, and I mean g-dawful fucking  _ bad  _ descisions, we still have an apocalypse to stop. And a boss who’s on the run.”

“He can come back from Georgie’s, can’t he?” Melanie asked. “I mean, you did tell him that he;s not being hunted by Daisy anymore, right?”

“Yeah,” said Tim. “He gave me some weird cryptic bullshit about a meeting he was in and fucked off. I haven’t heard from him since the call.” Tim noticed Martin’s look. “He’s not  _ dead.  _ Elias is a prick, but he’d tell us if our boss just up and died.”

“I hope so,” muttered Martin. 

\---

The stranger was the last entity the institute needed to stop before they could begin their own ritual. Not to mention, it would probably give the Archivist another mark or two. He could already see that the Archivist was finishing up his meeting with Jude, and although it hurt quite a bit to stare into the inferno, the mark was well and truly there. The sooner he could get his Archivist back to the institute, the sooner Jon would be marked by the Slaughter and Hunt. Daisy. Now that was a problem. She was volatile, and he wasn’t sure how long his control on Basira would extend to control over Daisy. Ugh, hunters were so hard to control, what with their instinct to follow their first thoughts. At least Daisy wasn’t trying to kill his archivist anymore. 

He wondered if it was time to call Peter, let him know that the bet was on. His hand hovered over the phone before he set it down. No. He could only call Peter once, and if his archivist died in the unknowing, then it was all for nought. Besides, no matter who called, Peter would be miffed. It had to be perfect timing, or the whole plan would come crashing down. 

As much time as Elias spent around Peter which was- not much, but more time anybody else spent around him, Elias didn’t necessarily like his… friend? Frenemy sounded like a movie about high school girls. Peter would say grudging acquaintance, but that wasn’t true either. Partner in crime would be accurate if Peter actually did anything more illegal than embezzling, and Elias didn’t necessarily count himself as a criminal. Despite the unfortunate circumstances that led him to get his hands dirty, it was- self defense. Well, archive defense. And it only happened once- twice- three times, but nobody caught James Wright before he died. Hmm. Better to sit back and watch the show for now. 

\---

Heat flaring in his bones, Jon revved the engine. He needed to get back to the archives, and he was going to, damn it, even if his skin completely peeled off in the process. And, the engine was fried. He sighed, and leaded his head against the leather wheel, not a smart idea, but he was too tired and burnt to care. Fuck. He called Georgie, and mercifully, she picked up after only two rings. 

“Jon?”

“Hi, Georgie.”

“What is it?”

“I may… need a ride.” There was silence on the other end of the phone, and he offered more of an explanation. “My engine’s fried.”

She gave a long, dramatic sigh into the phone. “ _ Fine.”  _ But only because you have like, half a friend on a good day. 

“I always have the admiral,” Jon pointed out. 

Georgie considered. “Fair. Where are you?”

Jon grunted, pulling his phone out of his pocket. “I’ll send you my location if my phone- isn’t-  _ burnt.”  _ Mercifully, it wasn’t, and his service wasn’t half bad. He supposed that even cultist’s needed to watch TV. 

“Holy fuck Jon, why are you forty miles out in the country?”

“Business meeting.”

Jon could almost hear Georgie rolling her eyes over the phone. “Right. Of course,” she said. 

“I did technically come out here for archival work,” said Jon.

Gerogie paused on her end of the phone. “You have to answer all my questions on the way back.” 

“Deal. But you have to drive me straight to the institute.” 

Georgie gave a sigh of affirmation, and hung up.

When Georgie arrived she immediately jumped out of the still running ghost hunt uk van, and ran to Jon. 

“Shit,” she said. “What happened?”

He motioned to the car. “I need to talk to my staff.”

“You need to talk to  _ me,  _ too,” said Georgie, but helped him into the passenger seat.

As soon as Jon was safely in the passenger seat, and the air conditioner was running, Georgie, with her eyes still planted firmly on the road, said “spill.”

Jon groaned, and leaned against the side of the window. “Jude Perry.”

“Who?”

“She had- a  _ lot  _ of fire.”

Georgie sighed. “This has to do with the Magnus institute, doesn’t it.”

“What else?” Jon glanced at Georgie. “I’m supposedly cleared of murder charges.”

“How?” Georgie asked.

“Elias. Daisy. Basira. They got me cleared.”

“Does this mean you can go back to your own flat?”

“Presumably.”

“Okay,” said Georgie. “But I want to hear about if any of you get hurt from the weird shit going on there.” She pulled up at the gate to the institute. “You gonna be okay?” she asked. 

Jon just glanced incredulously at her, and left the car. 

Was it always this hard to get down to the archives? Was the institute always this large? Damn. Finally, Jon was able to stumble into the stuffy basement, where there were four people bent over a stack of papers. They looked up when he came in, and Martin jumped up to steady Jon. 

“ _ Fuck  _ Jon,” said Tim. “What happened?”

Jon looked down at his peeling skin. “Sunburn.”

Tim gave Jon a look. “Daisy burns. Martin might, if he was out in the sun for days on end. Hell, I could probably burn if it really came down to it. You don’t burn.”

“I do,” said Jon, “Faced with a woman made of wax who wanted to meet me in an inferno.”

“Um, what?” asked Melanie.

“The desolation,” Tim said as explanation, then turned back to Jon. “Jon, why the  _ hell  _ were you meeting a murderous cult member in an inferno without telling us?”

“I did,” grunted Jon in response, sinking into the chair closest to him. “I told you I was going to a business meeting.”

Tim gaped at Jon. “I would punch you if you didn’t already look like shit.” 

Jon glared. “ _ Thank you  _ for that, Tim.” He looked around the room, his eyes stopping on Melanie. “Why is she here?”

“I work here,” said Melanie. 

“No you don't,” said Jon, then closed his eyes. “Oh. You  _ do. _ ”

“So does Basira.”

Jon looked over at Basira. “Wonderful. What is all of this?” he asked, gesturing at the stacks of papers sitting on the table.

“The Unknowing,” said Tim. “We’re going to blow up some fucking clowns.”

Jon sighed, and laid his head on the table. “Brief me?” he asked. 

“Right,” said Tim, “So a group of evil clowns are trying to end the world.”

“We’re going to blow them up,” said Melanie. 

“Daisy’s been stashing C4 under the institute to use,” Basira added.

Tim looked at her. “Oh, wonderful. We can check that off the list. Now we need to figure out where the apocalypse is going to start.”

“Under the institute?” Jon asked.

“We’re going to use the ghost hunt UK van to get it to wherever it needs to be,” said Melanie, popping a bubble in her gum. “Not like there’s many legal places to keep a roomful of explosives.”

Martin caught Jon’s bewildered expression, and said “Nikola Orsinov is running the Unknowing. So far, we don’t know where it’s being done, but we know enough about it that we can get together a plan to stop it.”

“We’re going to meet in the tunnels after work tonight,” said Basira. “It doesn’t feel safe to hash out the larger details up here.”

“Elias?” asked Jon.

“Elias,” Basira confirmed. 

\---

Daisy was waiting in a cafe across from the institute to have lunch with Basira. There was a lot to talk about. There was always a lot to talk about when it came to the institute, but especially right now, for Daisy.

Fuck, she had gotten so close to the tapes. Next time she saw him, she’d just kill him. If nothing else, Basira would believe she was in the right, and this time, she actually would be. 

If Daisy was the brawn, Basira was the brains. Together, Daisy was sure they could figure out how to get rid of Elias. 

Daisy was sipping a very sugary coffee when Basira walked in, and ordered her own, black.

Daisy waved. “Over here.”

Basira took her cup, and sat down across from Daisy. “What is it?” she asked.

“Elias.”

“What about him? We know he’s a murderer, we know he’s evil, what else is there?”

“I think we should kill him,” said Daisy. There was a beat of silence.

“Okay,” said Basira. 

“Okay?” asked Daisy. “Don’t you think it’s a bad idea?”

“No,” said Basira. “He deserves to die, and I trust you. And I don’t think anybody in the force will stop you.” She smirked. “Especially if they don’t catch you.”

Daisy drummed her fingers on the table tentatively. “There’s another thing. Elias stole some tapes. From the precinct.”

“Tapes…” Basira said slowly. “Not… Gertrude’s tapes?”

“Yeah,” said Daisy, “Those were the ones.” She looked at Basira. “What?”

“He didn’t…”

“ _ What,  _ Basira?”

“He didn’t steal them from the precinct,” said Basira. “On my last day, I took the tapes out of the evidence locker and brought them to the institute. I thought Jon would have more of a use for them than we would, and anyway, it’s not like they could  _ fire  _ me.”

“And Elias took them out of Jon’s office when he was on the run,” said Daisy, realization dawning. She slammed her fist on the table, making the drinks on the table rattle. “Dammit!” She looked straight at Basira. “You- the archives- need those tapes for something. I don’t know what, but Elias doesn’t want you to have them, and they’re  _ important.”  _

Basira nodded. “Okay. I believe you, and mark me, we’ll get those tapes.” she paused. ‘But after the apocalypse, alright?”

“I’m going to  _ kill  _ him,” said Daisy. 

“Be my guest.”

\---

Jon never got a library science degree, but he was pretty sure that stopping the apocalypse wasn’t something they taught you in uni. So he was about as prepared as anybody else could be at this point, and at least that meant he didn’t have to worry about imposter syndrome. Neither did Martin, he supposed, although Martin was always worrying, so he didn’t reckon knowledge of the apocalypse would be comforting. Still, it was comforting to know he was off the hook for knowing how to archive, and was finally able to go back to his own flat. 

Up until he unlocked the door and found two large delivery men and a mannequin in his living room.

He sighed. “Can I get some dinner while we talk?”

The mannequin nodded, and sat down with its hands folded over its chest on the sofa. The delivery men stood leaning against his table.

“Nikola, I presume?” Jon asked.

The mannequin nodded. “Breekon, and Hope,” she said, pointing at each of the delivery men in turn.

Then, she fixed her gaze on Jon. He actually took a step backwards, unnerved by the sudden gaze and what it would mean. “Your skin is downright  _ awful!”  _ she exclaimed. “Do you have a skincare routine? I can give you some wonderful pointers, but you’re never going to get a boyfriend if your skin looks like that.”

Jon frowned, touching his skin. “I was eaten by worms,” he said. 

Nikola tutted, and took his face in her plastic hands. “I do forget how damageable human skin is. Makes it awfully hard to get off.”

“I’m sorry, what?”

“Oh, we can’t take yours off until it’s properly soft. We came here for a  _ nice  _ skin, you see. We can’t just take it in the condition it’s in.”

Jon sat down at his table, and began to eat his ramen cup, while Nikola went poking through his rooms. Jon was thoroughly resigned at this point, and didn’t think he could be more surprised until Nikola came out of his bathroom holding his face wash. “Really, Cetaphil?” Nikola asked. “You could at least try.”

Before he could protest, Nikola had poured his entire bottle of face wash down the sink. 

Jon sighed. “Why are you here, Nikola?”

“Oh.” she frowned. “Can’t I just be here to see a friend?”

“No.”

“Fine. Then I’m here to kidnap you. I’d suggest you get in the van willingly, otherwise Breekon and Hope here will have to restrain you.” She put her hand on her chin, and then jolted up, remembering something. “Oh! Do you have a favorite chair to be tied to?”

“ _ What?” _

Nikola thought for a minute, then directed Breekon and Hope. “Just take one of the dining table chairs.” She clapped her hands. “Are you ready for a road trip?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings: Fire, nikola, kidnapping, murder.   
> Look, I don't know what trigger warnings to put on that sound official so anything that seems like it might need one gets it. 
> 
> Anyway I know I'm writing this but I would really like to know what happens next. Really would be great if I could plot this out better.


	25. A Becoming

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Helen and Sasha are on their last stage.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shit goes DOWN!

“Hello Elias! Can I  _ call  _ you Elias?”

Jon grunted through the cloth that was shoved in his mouth. 

“I have your archivist! Oh, you can’t actually see this. Let me set the scene, then! Don’t worry, we’re taking perfectly good care of him!”

Jon grunted through the gag again, a bit more comprehensible, since he had managed to chew past part of it.

“Oh, don’t interrupt! You  _ do  _ know I’m talking to your boss? Treat this like a performance review.” Nikola turned back to the phone. “We had to gag him, you know. He wouldn’t stop asking questions.”She tutted. “Archivist, we wouldn’t have to gag you or tie you down if you just stopped trying to  _ escape!”  _ She smiled, and turned back to the phone. “Elias, can I  _ call  _ you Elias? You have  _ not  _ raised this one well at  _ all.  _ He is  _ rude!  _ And he won’t stop asking questions! Oh, but now  _ I  _ get to ask the questions.” She turned back to Jon. “How are you  _ feeling?” _

Jon grunted again. 

Nikola stroked his face. “ _That_ doesn’t sound good at _all.”_ She paused. “Do you have a favorite lotion brand? We need your skin to be nice and smooth before we peel you.”

“ _ Mghgddf? _ ”

“Alright then. I’ll just pick up a selection.”

\---

Helen was next to Sasha again. With closed eyes, a slight smile, and arms crossed over her chest, she looked almost holy. Sasha shook off the thought. 

Helen took a deep breath, and Sasha’s hand. “It’s coming.”

The distortion was a room again, perfectly circular with shifting patterns covering the yellow wallpaper. Two doors were on opposite sides of the room, with Helen and Sasha in the center.

Helen gestured at the doors. “Minutes. Maybe seconds.” She looked at Sasha with concern. “I can’t come through the same door as you.”

“That’s okay,” said Sasha. “I think.. I think I need to do this.”

Helen turned away from Sasha, and began to stride to the door across from her, when Sasha touched her shoulder. “Wait,” she said. 

Helen waited. “Can I... “ Sasha paused. “I don’t know if I can make it through. Can I kiss you? In case… In case it’s the last time I ever see you.”

Helen nodded.

As they kissed, the world exploded. Or perhaps, only their world exploded. Helen could feel Sasha slipping, could feel that the distortion didn’t  _ want  _ her, but Helen  _ was  _ the distortion, and Helen wanted her. Sasha was neon green and dark purple fading into black, and helen was a burst of flame and poison, with her yellows and reds and pinks, tethering them firmly to each other, making them one. She gripped Sasha’s shoulders, and held her there, with Helen Richardson. 

Sasha was right. This was the last time Helen Richardson would look at Sasha James. This was the last time Helen Richardson would touch Sasha James. This was the last time Helen Richardson and Sasha James would be together, and it would be the first time Helen and Sasha could truly be together. 

As Helen held Sasha there, with her, she felt  _ everything.  _ She watched Sasha as a child, scrape her knee after falling out of the apple tree in the backyard. She watched herself wear a skirt for the first time. She watched Sasha in university, nearly getting hit by a careless driver. She watched herself close her first house sale. She watched as Sasha walked into a door, and never came out. She watched as they both walked out of a door and took the life of a man that didn’t want to be trapped. 

And then they broke from each other. 

“Hold the door,” said Helen Richardson, for the last time.

\---

“Oh, Archivist, what have you done now? It’s almost sad to see you like this.”

Jon groaned as Michael appeared. 

“Almost,” said Michael. “I’ve come to a decision. I’m going to kill you.”

Jon didn’t even have the energy to be scared. He groaned, and tried to flip off Michael, but he found that that didn’t work so well when your hands were tied to a chair. 

“I want you to know,” said Michael, “that this goes against my nature. So-” He enunciated each word carefully- “Ask your questions.” 

Jon gasped in relief as the gag was removed. “What?” he asked in confusion. First question. 

“Ask me,” said Michael. 

So Jon did. How did Michael find him, what did Micheal have to do with the Unknowing,  _ why  _ was he here?

He should have known that asking the distortion to give him answers would prove entirely unhelpful. Until of course, Michael suggested a  _ statement.  _

“Statement of...Michael.” He paused. “Take direct from subject. Date…” He paused, and looked at Michael, who smiled.

“The last day of the Archivist’s life.”

\---

Sasha heard it all, and she boiled with rage. 

“ _ Don’t,”  _ said Helen, seeing Sasha reach for the doorknob. “He has to try to open the door first.”

“He’s hurting Jon,” Sasha growled. 

“ _ Wait.” _

They heard the statement. If Helen was upset, she knew Sasha was even more so. 

“I’m going to  _ kill  _ him,” said Sasha. 

“You will,” said Helen, “When he opens the door. Or tries to.”

Every second was agony. Every second was closer to the finish line. 

The door rattled. 

_ Sasha’s  _ door rattled. 

She opened it to see Michael. “Hello,” she said, towering over him, and dragged him into the room. Helen turned to face their captor. Perhaps simply another victim, and she looked at him with pity.

“I’m sorry, Michael,” she said. “And I’m especially sorry about Michael Shelley. He deserved better. But I put my life, I put  _ Sasha’s  _ life over yours. This isn’t a mercy killing. This is my life over yours, pure are simple, and I don’t feel guilty.” She took a deep breath. “I  _ am  _ sorry, Michael. But it’s not going to stop me.”

She stepped through the door.

Sasha stepped through the door. 

Michael fell.

\---

The room was too dark. Everything was too dark after the blinding light of the Distortion’s corridors, and Sasha was relieved and panicked at the same time. Then, Sasha saw her friend, and her jaw dropped. “Jon,” she said. 

Jon whipped around, the sudden comprehension dawning on his face. “Sasha?” he asked.

“In a manner of speaking,” said Sasha. “I’m also Helen.”

“Helen… Helen  _ Richardson?  _ The statement giver?”

“No,” said Helen. “ _ Helen.  _ I used to be Helen Richardson, but now I’m simply Helen.”

Sasha began to untie Jon’s bindings, while Jon stared at Helen with his jaw set in understanding and hate. “What did you do to her?” he asked. 

“Sasha? Nothing. I stayed with her, I suppose. But she’s not a pawn, she made her own choices. I didn’t force her to do anything.”

“Why-” shouted Jon, tears beginning to fall- “Is she like  _ that?!”  _

“I chose this.”

“No. No, you didn’t, the Sasha I knew would never-”

“The Sasha you knew wouldn’t have been me if I hadn’t jumped through that door.” Sasha took a deep breath that she didn’t need. “I’m Sasha, and this is Helen, and I’m not Sasha James, and she’s not Helen Richardson, and Helen didn’t make me do  _ anything.”  _

“Helen is… better than Michael,” said Helen, twirling her hair.

“But Helen is gone,” Jon said.

Helen thought. “Yes. Now there’s only me. Do you still want to leave here?”

Jon looked from Helen to Sasha, from Sasha to Helen. “Are you still going to kill me?” he asked. 

“No,” said Sasha. “That was what Michael wanted. I am not Michael.”

“What if this is a trick?” said Jon. “You’re the distortion, you’re lies, what if- what if you stole my friend’s face to make me listen?”

“I’m not a replica, Jon,” said Sasha. 

“If it was a trick, what would you do?” asked Helen.

“How long-” Jon took a deep, shuddering breath. “How long have I been here?”

Sasha glanced at Helen and smiled. “Time isn’t real.”

“Right.”

“Are you coming?”

Jon closed his eyes. “What do I have to lose?”

“Only your sanity,” Helen whispered, as the living distortion and the Archivist walked through a door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tws: Nikola torture, spiral tws, loss of sense of self, major character death, paranoia  
> So I would say I'm back on my hamlet bullshit, but that would imply I ever got off of it, so instead I'm going to say that I'm on a whole new level because I've scripted and am in the process of writing a whole ass hamlet album. I've got 18 songs, although they're in various stages of production, and a couple are narration. two are already fully recorded. So that's what I've been doing with my time. Whew. I feel like every new chapter is just me going through and giving my excuses for not updating often while still,,, updating often. Maybe I should give these excuses to my AP research teacher because I actually did miss an assignment in that yesterday. I told him it was computer troubles though, so you know,,, hopefully I can do it this time.


	26. A wound reopened

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Murder is discussed.

“A  _ Month,  _ Elias. I was kidnapped for a month and you didn’t do anything.”

“I can assure you, I was doing everything in my power to locate you,” Elias said. Jon scoffed. “Everyone was working on locating the ritual sight.”

“You didn’t tell them I’d been kidnapped though, did you?”

“What would it have done, Jon?” Elias asked. “At best, Martin’s research would have been sloppier.”

“I’m  _ sick  _ of having to rely on things who want to kill me for rescue.”

“Fine, Jon,” said Elias, more irritated now. “I’m  _ sorry  _ that my powers of omniscience aren’t up to your level, and I’m sorry I have to spend my time coddling you, but you have a job to do, and I’m  _ not  _ going to spend my time fighting your battles.”

“ _ My  _ battles?” Jon scoffed. “The only battles I’ve been fighting are  _ yours.” _

“ _ I  _ would have thought preventing the horrific transformation of our world was rather your goal more than mine.”

Jon sat, clenching and unclenching his fists, until he tersely told Elias, “Fine. At least now we’ve established you’re of no real use here. Can you  _ do  _ anything but send me statements to read?”

“I’ve been  _ trying  _ to give you the information you need.”

Jon laughed, hollowly and mirthlessly. “Sure, when you’re not bashing it’s head in with a pipe. Or leaving me to find out my friend  _ wasn’t  _ dead the whole time, but they  _ just  _ became something worse!”

Elias looked intrigued. “What?”

“You  _ knew.  _ You  _ knew  _ Sasha wasn’t dead, not properly, and you didn’t tell me. You left her alone in the corridor, and thanks to  _ you,  _ we lost any real chance we had at saving her!”

“Sasha was  _ dead.  _ Jon, whatever is wearing her skin now, I can assure you she walked into those hallways and was long past the point of no return when Tim confronted me.”

Jon wilted against the back of his chair. “That’s… That’s  _ not  _ Sasha? She came out of the doorways. She’s different now, but it  _ was  _ Sasha.”

Elias screwed up his face in concentration. “It used to be Sasha James,” he said. “Now it’s Sasha.”

“What’s the  _ difference!  _ That’s what she said too!”

“The difference is that now, it’s the living distortion.” Confusion showed on Jon’s face, and Elias sighed. “Nothing can be easy, can it? When Michael was sent into the corridors, he didn’t die, not exactly. I thought Sasha would die, I can’t see into the corridors, but she was gone. It’s as much a surprise to me that she came out as it is to you, but she’s not Sasha James the archival assistant. She’s  _ Sasha,  _ the heart of lies.”

\---

“...Helen?”

“Yes, Darling?”

“What  _ are  _ we?”

“We are what Michael once was, but we are better than him. We are the throat of delusion incarnate, the heart of lies, the center of the distortion.”

“Are we human?” Sasha asked.

“No,” said Helen. 

Sasha paused, the feeling of control in her gut ever wonderful and ever stronger. “Can I leave this place?”

“Like Michael? No,” said Helen. Not unless you want what happened to him to happen to you.”

“I want to see the sun,” said Sasha. “I want to see my friends.”

“Then yes,” said Helen. “You can see the sun. You can see your friends, but you can’t stop being us.”

\---

Jon ran down the steps to the archives faster than he should have, since his legs and arms were still weak from the kidnapping. He careened on past the shelves, almost tripping onto them, until he was caught by a blonde, muscular woman. Daisy. 

“Damn,” she said. “You look like shit.” 

Jon glared. “Where are Tim and Martin?”

“Over there,” Daisy pointed. “Going over the plan again, trying to find any clues.”

Jon stumbled over to them, catching himself on the table. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, while Martin and Tim each took hold of a shoulder, attempting to steady him. As soon as he 

caught his breath, he blurted out, “Sasha’s alive.”

Tim’s eyes were as wide as saucers, and Martin sat down, shocked. “But…” trailed Tim, “She was taken… she, she…  _ How?”  _

“Michael didn’t kill her. She killed Michael.”

“She.. What?”

“Tim,”

“No, Boss! You mean to tell me that I mourned my best fucking friend for  _ nothing?  _ That the whole time I could have saved her?” He stared at the floor. “That when I saw Sasha in Michael’s corridors, it wasn’t a trick of the  _ fucking  _ light? She was inches away from me and I could have saved her from days- weeks-  _ months,  _ of pain?”

“Tim, you didn’t know-”

“Well you know what? Good intentions pave the road to hell, Jon! I  _ saw  _ her, and I did  _ nothing.” _

“She’s back now, That’s the important thing.”

“No it’s  _ not.  _ The important thing is that she spent a year trapped in hell, and none of us, not  _ one  _ of us thought we could help her. She was alone, and I could have helped her.”

“Not alone.”

Tim stared up at Jon from his tear filled eyes. “Yeah, right. She had  _ Michael.  _ Great company, that is.”

“She had-” Jon paused. “She had  _ Helen.”  _

“Helen?”

“I think she’s also the spiral?” said Jon. “Sasha told me that she was also Helen.”

“I need to see her,” said Tim. 

“No,” said Jon. “She’s  _ different  _ now. I don’t think she’s Sasha anymore.”

“Oh fuck  _ off,”  _ said Tim. “Just because you don’t care doesn’t mean I’m as emotionless as you.”

Jon recoiled, as if he’d been physically struck. “I’m not  _ emotionless,”  _ he said. “I cared about her too, but the distortion- it twisted her. That’s what it  _ does.” _

“She’s still Sasha,” said Tim. “She  _ has  _ to be.”

“Tim…” Jon sighed and flopped back in his chair as Tim stormed out of the Archives. “Right,” he said. Jon fixed his gaze on Martin. “Elias told me about the Unknowing. He told me where it might be, what it was, how we can stop it. Of course, it’s all useless if  _ Tim  _ throws a temper tantrum.”

“How did Elias know about the Unknowing?”

Jon frowned at Daisy. “There were tapes in his office. The ones Basira brought me, but Elias took them when I was accused of murder.”

“Tapes.” Daisy looked at Basira. “I’m going to  _ kill  _ him.”

“What?” asked Jon.

Daisy turned to Jon with a look of determination and exasperation on her face. “Elias took your tapes, the same tapes that were found with Gertrude when she was shot. Elias doesn’t want me to have the tapes, so he’s keeping them in his office. I’m going to get those tapes, even if it means I have to kill him.”

“Daisy…” said Jon slowly, “If you kill Elias, we die too.”

“What?”

“If he dies, so does the rest of the institute. That’s why I haven’t made good on those murder charges.” Jon laughed. “Hell, that’s why I didn’t ask you to kill him the first moment I knew you were up for it.”

“And that’s why…” said Basira.

“Yes Basira, that’s why Elias hired you. Daisy can’t kill him unless she lets Basira die as well.”

Daisy slammed her fist on the table. “I’m going to hurt him,” she said. “I’m going to make him  _ wish  _ he was dead.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tws: paranoia, elias  
> Me trying to get up the energy to edit the last ten chapters I wrote: Nope, don't want to, not interesting, ughhhhh.   
> anyway I am Trying, especially since I wrote all my college essays today and still did this!


	27. A reflection

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sasha talks to Tim.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter is big and exciting! :D

“I think I need to talk to him,” said Sasha. 

Helen looked up from the bush she was pruning. “Who?”

“Tim,” said Sasha. “He deserves to know what I am, at least. And I want Sasha to be friends with him.”

Helen waited. “Aren’t you going to give me a door?” Sasha asked. 

“Try to make a door,” said Helen.

Sasha thought. She  _ wanted  _ a door, she wanted to see Tim, and she was the distortion now. She could make her own doors. 

There was a door in place of the mirror. Helen smiled. “I knew you could do it!”

Sasha knocked on the door. No matter how long it had been, it was rude to enter a friends apartment without knocking. 

The door creaked open, and it wasn’t her doing. She saw sharp eyes through the crack in the door, she saw fluffy red hair and a g-dawful sweatshirt. The scowl was new, and so were the papercuts littering his hands. 

“Tim,” she said. He gaped at her. “Can I come in?” she asked. 

He opened the door wider. “Sasha?”

She walked into his apartment and sat down on his couch, g-d, it had been so long since she’d seen that couch. Even if she had to be careful not to slice it up. 

“Is that really you, Sasha?” 

“No,” Sasha answered, honestly. 

Tim continued as if he hadn’t even heard her. “Sasha, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I left you in there for so long, and I’m sorry I let it hurt you. I’m- I’m just  _ sorry,  _ Sasha.”

She felt herself speak. “Tim, you were friends with Sasha James. I’m just Sasha. Can you be friends with Sasha, too?”

“I don’t understand,” he said. 

“It’s different,” said Sasha. “I’m not just Sasha, I’m also Helen, and I was Michael, until we decided we didn’t want him anymore.”

Tim raised his hands, as if to cup her face, but thought better of it when he saw the way that her cheeks sliced and stabbed. “I don’t care if you’re a monster Sasha- well, unless you’re like Nikola, but you’re still Sasha. You haven’t been stolen.”

Sasha James would’ve cried. Sasha stood up from the couch roughly, slicing the cover off with her hands.”I’m like Nikola. I hurt people, I take them and I trap them and  _ we  _ hurt people and I’m  _ not  _ still Sasha, Tim. I’m the eye of deception, and Helen is the heart. I’m the remnant of a friend you used to have, and a thing that wants to make a new friend.” She took a deep breath. “Tim, Sasha James cared about you more than anybody else in her life, but you don’t know Sasha. I know who you are, and I carry everything Sasha James did, but we’re different.”

“But you want to help us, right? You’re  _ good.” _

“I’m hungry, that’s what I am right now.”

Tim rushed off to his kitchen, desperate for something to do with his hands. “I’ll make us some dinner,” he said, throwing ingredients onto his table.

She closed her eyes, but more just appeared. “Not for food, Tim.”

“Then what…”

A door appeared between the two, so she could no longer see him. “I’m going home,” she said, and slammed the door behind her. 

“How was it, darling?”

“Did you  _ know  _ that would happen?” asked Sasha, her eyes burning. “Did you want me to know that nobody would see me the same way anymore, or they’d see me as unchanged? Did you want me to think you were the only one in my- well, my  _ life  _ that I could trust? Are you  _ happy?”  _ she screamed. 

Helen looked up from the flowerbeds she’d created, looked up from the multicolored flowers that she had cut and was holding delicately in one hand. “Sasha, I  _ want  _ you to be happy. Can’t I care about you?”

“You turned me into  _ this.”  _ Sasha motioned at her spiraling, fractal made body, swirling unsteadily.

“I let you choose,” said Helen. “Yeah, I wanted you around. I don’t have anything to do with Tim. I didn’t make you into this. I assure you, I’m not very good at lying to myself.”

“Is it really a choice if the other option is death?”

“Yes! Yes, it’s a choice. I made mine, and you made yours, and you don’t  _ get  _ to blame me if we made a mistake!”

Their legs were unwinding slowly, stretching upwards to meet a ceiling that wasn’t there. Both women were eight feet tall, looking directly into each other's eyes. 

Sasha sighed. “I know. You didn’t have anything to do with this. I’m fucked up and angry, and I don’t have anybody to take it out on.”

Helen touched Sasha’s arm, staring at her with concern. “Tim cares about you, Sasha.”

Sasha scoffed. “Yeah, he cares about Sasha  _ James.  _ Not Sasha.”

“It’s new. Give him time.”

“He shouldn’t need time!”

“Yes, he should. And you still haven’t apologized.”

Sasha compressed herself back to the height she was before the anger got to her. “I wasn’t angry at you, Helen. I’m sorry I assumed the worst.”

Helen nodded. “Life is learning. And hey, Tim is friends with  _ you.  _ Whatever you are.”

“What have I done to deserve you, Helen?” 

Helen scoffed. “I brought a wonderfully scared man in here today. I’ve been saving him for you, in case your monster pity party went too far. Just to remind you I kill people far more often than you.”

“We’re not…  _ good,  _ are we, Helen?”

“No. We’re evil, I’m unrepentant, and I don’t care what happens outside of these corridors so long as you’re okay.”

“So romantic,” said Sasha.

“I know,” said Helen. “But hey, not caring is the best thing I’ve ever done.” She smiled with far too many teeth. “The less you think, the easier it gets to spiral this way. It’s nice, not to care.”

“Damn it, I wish I could do that.”

“You can. It might take you a little longer, but we have all the time in the world. And I’ll make sure nothing…  _ Michaels  _ us.”

“He’s gone, isn’t he?”

“Just another shell in my collection,” said Helen. “I don’t give a fuck if we’re good, or if we’re human, or if we’re doing  _ anything  _ right. I just care that we’re happy.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tws: relationship issues  
> Hey so on my recent new obsessions, it is now maritime history, so it's really too bad I wrote the boat scenes before I started learning about that. I wrote an eighteen page bibliography yesterday so it seems as if that got me back into writing this? You know, get the writing juices flowing.


	28. An Unknowing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lets blow up some evil clowns!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I put in a tentative chapter number! I have no idea if it will go up or down, but based on what I have, I'm assuming it will end up being roughly 75 chapters.

“So here’s what we know,” said Tim.

Basira squinted at the cramped handwriting on the flowchart. “How do you read this?” she asked. “Actually, how do you  _ write  _ like this. It takes some real talent to cram everything in this tight.”

Tim glared at her. “I’ve seen you write, Mrs. High and Mighty. It’s not much better.”

“Fine, fine, go on. What’s the plan?”

“Alright,” said Tim, a hint of a smile present on his face, though not from mirth. “Me, Jon and Basira will go to the wax museum to stop the ritual. We’ll plant the bombs, and then-”

“Where’s Daisy?” interrupted Basira.

“She’s going to sneak into Elias’s office and grab the tapes while he’s distracted,” said Tim.

“I’m the distraction,” said Martin.

Tim nodded grimly. “That’s right. Martin is going to stay here and distract Elias.”

Jon looked at Martin. “Are you going to be okay? Because we can-”

“I’ll be fine,” Martin said, and took a deep breath. “I’ve been waiting for a chance to piss off Elias.”

Tim clapped him on the back. “Attaboy.”

“And me?” asked Melanie. 

Martin and Tim exchanged worried glances. “We were going to have you get the tapes-” said Martin.

“-But Daisy wanted to do that,” finished Tim. 

“The problem is,” said Martin, “Daisy wants to grab the entire box of tapes, rather than just the one with Jurgen Leitner's death on it.”

Melanie nodded. “That’s harder, isn’t it.”

“Yeah,” said Tim, “And they’re probably both hidden in different areas around his office. So either you sneak in with Daisy and help her out, or you distract Elias for longer.”

“It’s up to you,” said Martin.

All eyes were on Melanie, and she took a deep breath. Elias had already threatened to replay her worst nightmares if she antagonized him again. She wanted to be brave, she didn’t want to let him  _ get to  _ her, but she was still scared. The question was whether she wanted to face that fear, or avoid it.

“I’ll go with Daisy,” said Melanie.

“Is…  _ Sasha  _ going to help us at all?” asked Jon.

“I don’t think she likes me very much anymore.”

“Right,” said Jon. “Well. Get a good night’s rest, I suppose.”

“We need an archive cheer,” observed Basira.

“Rather not,” Melanie, Tim, Martin, and Jon all said in unison.

\---

Elias was steaming. He couldn’t find a way to kill Daisy so she’d be less of a problem, he’d have to call in favor after favor, and the circus would  _ hate  _ him after his archive team stopped their ritual. Which means that if he wanted anything from Nikola, he’d be deep in her debt. Assuming she was able to survive the incoming bonfire, of course. Tim on the team was a mistake, since Michael was interested enough in Jon as it was, if Sasha had just been taken according to plan, maybe the whole Tim thing would be unnecessary. His archivist was  _ already  _ marked by the stranger.

Hypotheticals were a bitch.

Nevertheless, as he watched his Archivist take statements in case they didn’t survive, he had to laugh at the trivial concerns his employees fostered. After all, why was  _ Martin  _ giving a statement? He wasn’t even going to come on their little field trip. 

And Daisy? The hunt was ingrained so deeply into her blood, that any statement from her was like taking it directly from the hunt. Barely a person anymore, she was, and with Basira a thoroughly ineffective anchor, nobody but him knew how far gone she was. 

_ Sasha.  _ Now she would have been a perfect candidate for well, any entity really, but especially the eye. Too logical for the spiral, but she was prime meat. Elias was almost jealous that she’d gotten pulled in by Michael. But she still might be a problem, her and Helen, since they hated him with a fervor only matched by the archival staff. He Watched them until they got to the door of the wax museum, and then there was a blind spot. Damn. He let his eyes roam down, down to the archives, searching for Martin. If nothing else, he was interesting to watch. Then, he felt a sharp stabbing pain in his gut.

Martin was  _ burning statements.  _

He ran down the stairs, faster than he’d ever deigned to do before, passing Fiston at the reception desk. Honestly, he was kind of glad Rosie was gone. Too nosy. 

Only one statement was gone by the time he entered the archives, and dashed through the isles to be greeted by a closed door. There was another sharp stab of pain in his gut as another statement burned, and he pounded on the door, giving up all semblance of professionalism. 

“Let me in, Martin!”

“Oh, sorry, I can’t hear you Elias, there’s a  _ door  _ in the way,” came the falsely unconcerned voice.

“Now is  _ not  _ the time for games, Martin!” yelled Elias, still pounding on the door.

“ _ Make  _ time, then.”

“Unlock the door.”

“Oh, thought you had a key? Usually the head of an institute keeps a  _ key  _ around somewhere.”

“ _ Martin.” _

“I’m not going anywhere, Elias.” He paused. “But I would hurry, if I were you,” he said, and Elias heard the flick of a lighter and felt the ignition of another statement. 

Elias stalked off to get his set of keys.

“Benjamin Hatendi…” Martin muttered, as Elias unlocked the door. “You were too slow to save his statement, weren’t you?”

“What are you doing, Martin?”

Martin looked up with a sneer. “Oh, is it not obvious enough?” He flicked the lighter on again, and held it up to a statement, watching the center of the paper blacken and burn. Elias doubled over. “Thought you would just be able to look into my mind, know exactly what I’m doing, what I’m thinking,” said Martin. “Or…” he paused, “You’re too busy watching other things, aren’t you?”

“What are you doing, and  _ why? _ ” bit out Elias. 

“Just thought-” he shrugged- “Just thought I’d drop a few suggestions in the box. Turns out my suggestion is-” and Martin lit another statement on fire, and watched it burn with a satisfied  expression on his face “-fire.”

“But you haven’t torched the entire building yet, so this is- what is it called? A cry for attention.”

“Maybe I just want to  _ hurt  _ you.”

Elias scowled. Sometimes he actually wished he had Gertrude back. At least she never tried to distract him from Seeing an attempt to end a ritual, one that they’d been discussing  _ in the archives  _ for weeks on end. “No more than you’re hurting yourself by acting out,” said Elias.

Martin spluttered, and nearly dropped his lighter. No, not his lighter- _Jon’s_ lighter, complete with a silvery spider web pattern etched on the side. “So I’m acting out, is that it?” he asked. “Melanie tried to kill you, Daisy’s a rabid dog- she’s trying to kill you too, and Tim is on a mad spree for revenge, but that’s it. Martin’s just _acting out._ He’ll have a cry, and be all fine and back up to doting on the rest of the staff in a day or two, tops. Is that it?”

“Yes,” said Elias, “And if you’re quite done trying to convince me otherwise, I have a lot of work to get done.”

Martin grabbed a statement and lit it with so much force it nearly caused Elias to throw up. That was it. That was the breaking point. “Jon put you up to this, didn’t he?” said Elias.

“You think I’m doing this for him?” asked Martin coldly.

“It’s exactly the kind of half baked scene he’d come up with, and you’d do just about  _ anything  _ for him,” said Elias. 

“Maybe- Maybe-”

“I don't need to read your mind for that,” said Elias, flicking soot off of his shoe.

“Maybe- After Sasha, after  _ everything _ \- Is it so hard to believe that after all of that, I hate you just as much?”

Elias fixed Martin with a blank stare. After two hundred years of cheating and lying, one had to have a very good poker face. Internally, Elias was crumbling, aware that with every statement Martin burned, he burned with the statements, The ash on his shoe wasn’t from a statement, it was his own. “I don’t think you’d act on it,” said Elias. A bluff, but one so good even Martin believed him. 

“You think I’m  _ blind?”  _ asked Martin. 

Elias almost laughed at the half thought out plan to stop him. Even so, he couldn’t hold in a scoff. “No, you;ve made that quite clear,” he said. 

“So I don’t get to be angry,” said Martin. “I just have to run around, the happy one, making tea for everyone and incessantly soothing others, while  _ they  _ all get to have feelings?”

“Get. To. The. Point.”

“Maybe there isn’t one!” Martin almost shrieked, flinging his hands out, sending statements flying. “Maybe I just want to be angry! You killed my friend, and brought her back worse than death, you’ve hurt Jon and Tim more times than I can count, you’ve killed  _ two  _ people, one of them in this office. Maybe I just want to be angry!”

“You want to waste my time,” said Elias.

Martin stared up at Elias, resolutely as always. “Yes,” he said.

‘Well then, that puts me in a difficult position.”

\---

“You go first, Tim.”

Tim sighed. “Really? This again?”

“It’s just cobwebs,” Basira added.

Jon wrinkled his nose. “No such thing as  _ just  _ cobwebs.”

Basira rolled her eyes. “Fine, I’ll go first, if it bothers you that much.” Jon visibly relaxed. “I still think it’s stupid, for the record.”

“It’s on the record.” Jon held up the tape recorder.

The three walked in silence for almost ten seconds, before Tim spoke up again.

“The last of them go in the main room, right?”

“Yes,” said Basira. “Same as the last time you asked.”

“Just-” he exhaled sharply- “Just want to be absolutely certain.”

“Right, well, now you are.”

Basura wrinkled her nose. “It’s weird in here.”

“You scared?” asked Tim.

“No, it’s just…  _ Weird.” _

“Well, it’s not like we’re alone! Look, there’s good old king Charles!” Basira groaned. “And there’s the beatles, but they were all in separate accidents, like Ringo-”

“We  _ get  _ it, Tim. Just.. Make sure they don’t start moving,” said Jon. 

“Right,” said Tim. After a beat of silence, he spoke again. “It is spooky here, you know.” Jon groaned. “What,” said Tim, “I thought you’d be over that by now.”

“It’s  _ unprofessional.” _

“So is blowing up a building of clowns, boss.”

“Basira?” Tim asked. “How much longer until you get these planted?”

“It wouldn’t take this long if Daisy had come,” said Basira.

“She  _ wanted  _ to stay and grab the tapes.”

Basira sighed. ‘Almost done. Then I can stop dealing with the rest of you.”

Jon sighed. “Reckon this is churchill, Tim? Tim, don’t-!”

Tim had turned the handle of a door that led into an auditorium, adn Jon had grabbed him by the arm. “We should know what’s happening. How close everything is,” said Tim.

“We can’t let them see us!”

Tim paused, his hand twitching. “Are you sure it’s through that door?”

Jo sighed. “Yes, I think so. When Nikola had me I saw that they knocked through most of the center, made an auditorium.”

“How big?” asked Tim.

“I don’t know,” said Jon. “Do you want measurements? It was big!”

“It’s a small building,” said Basira.

“I suppose.” Jon let out a breath. “It seems a lot bigger on the inside.”

“And this is where they kept you?” asked Basira.

“Yes.”

“Alright.” Basira held her hands up in surrender. “I just didn’t want to come this far and find out it’s a dead end-”

“This is  _ definitely  _ the right place.”

Basira stumbled backward, nearly tripping on the floor. “It moved.”

Tim held up his hatchet. “Do you need me to-?” He gestured with the axe.

“No, no,” said Basira. “It was just a flicker in its eyes.”

“If the waxworks are coming alive, then-”

“Shut up and look,” said Basira.

Jon leaned closer to the waxworks, and took a deep, shuddering breath. “It’s not- they’re not- oh,  _ g-d.” _ He looked at Tim. “Tim, I think we’d better look in there.”

“Right.”

“On three, then?”

Tim paused. “Three,” he said, and opened the door. 

“Holy shit.”

Basira peered around from behind the boys. “Done- what the fuck?”

‘Basira, I think we might need more of that- This place, it’s… big.”

“What the hell is that thing?” asked Basira, staring at the people in the choir. People might have been the wrong word, though, for is it really a person without skin?

“Anglerfish.” Jon took a deep breath. “I knew it took the skin of people, I supposed it didn't- well, it never used the rest of the body. But I guess- I guess you don’t need  _ skin  _ to sing.”

Tim stood, his jaw open and eyes wide. 

“What do we do?” asked Basira.

“We can’t help them,” said Jon.

At that, Tim finally looked up. “We can’t  _ leave  _ them, either!” He softened his voice. “That’s what happened to Danny, isn’t it. Oh, g-d,  _ that’s  _ what happened to Danny.”

“Well,” said Jon, “What  _ can  _ we do.”

“You brought me in a distraction,” said Tim. “So let me do that.”

“No. I’m not going to indulge your death wish.”

Tim scoffed. “You think  _ that’s  _ what this is? You  _ knew  _ we wouldn’t be coming back-”

“I  _ refuse  _ to let you die for nothing!” Jon interrupted.

“Oh yeah, but you’ll let  _ them  _ die, no problem,” Tim said, pointing down at the gruesome scene below them.

“They’re already dead.”

“Alright,” said Basira. “I got all the bombs planted, are we going to stay and watch these people die?”

“Let’s go,” said Jon.

But Tim didn’t move. “It’s not right,” he said. “We can't just let them die, explode a building on top of innocent bystanders, it’s not  _ right! _ “

“Tim, please,” Jon said, pleading, but Tim didn’t buge from where he stood frozen over the auditorium. And the music began to whine as Nikola took the stage.

“Get behind me,” he said, shoving Tim into a position where he wouldn’t be seen.

It was no use. Nikola looked up, with a cheery glint in her eyes, directly to where the three were standing in the museum, and said, “Will the audience please take their positions?”

Basira made a choking sound in the back of her throat, watching the skin unravel, but Nikola paid them no mind. “The show has begun!” Nikola yelled.

Everything crumbled.

\---

“Tim? Basira? Where  _ are  _ you!” Jon screamed, halfway delirious from the song.

“It’s me,” said Tim, “Your friend.” No, it wasn’t Tim.

“Don’t you want help?” said Basira

“Yes,” said Tim, “What are you going to do, Archivist?”

A thousand screams and voices all echoing from his head, all voices of somebody that he knew, but not  _ really…  _ What was the plan?

“Do you see what I’m holding, Jon?” said Tim. No- not Tim. “It’s a handheld detonator!” Right, that was the plan. Fire melted plastic, it would have stopped the- what was it? The Unknowing. “If you had used it,” said Tim, no- Nikola, “I imagine we all would have come to a  _ dreadfully  _ nasty end!” 

“No,” said Jon, struggling to stand. “That was- um- that was…”

“Don’t worry!” said Basira’s voice, uncharacteristically giggly. “I’m sure it’s in safe hands now!”

“I don’t know… I don’t understand…”

“Will you ever?”

Across the room, Tim was struggling to stand. Tears mixed with blood, and rolled down his face giving him the appearance of a demented clown, sickly ironic for the state he was in. He was screaming at Basira, scrambling backwards over the rubble to escape her gaze, as she struggled forward toward him.

“It’s me,” she said. “It’s me, and I’m here.”

“No,” Tim gasped. “No, that’s not  _ good  _ enough, I don’t believe you!”

Jon pulled his attention away from the Tim in the distance, and back to the Tim in front of him. Struggling to focus, he asked him- it- her, “What are you?”

“Oh,” said the thing in front of him, “Isn’t it obvious? I’m  _ Tim!” _

“No.”

“You caught me!” said the Nikola thing. “I’m Sasha!”

“ _ Shut up.”  _ Jon hissed, trying to swing for something, make some part of this plastic bitch feel pain, but he only stumbled further into the show. Oh…, oh g-d. He was a part of the show now. They had an archivist’s skin in front of them. He never should have come, it wasn’t his mission, he should have given the detonator to the  _ real  _ Tim, Tim was the one who cared. 

“Really!” said Nikola. “Sasha, back from the dead and all! And nothing like that little  _ freak  _ you call a friend now.”

“Shut  _ up,  _ or I swear I’ll-”

“You’ll  _ what,  _ Archivist? You can’t hurt  _ me! _ ”

And Gertrude was in front of him next, calling him a liar, and pathetic, and he couldn’t even make it past stopping  _ one  _ ritual. 

“How?” he gasped, but the Gertrude in front of him only laughed and laughed and laughed. 

“Don’t be obtuse, Jon! she said. “I’m here because you  _ failed!” _

“I almost- I almost-”

“What, Jon?” said the Gertrude Nikola in front of him, smiling in a ghastly way. “You  _ almost  _ stopped us? You  _ almost  _ saved Sasha?” Nikola leaned closer until all he could see was her plastic lips, bloody red and dripping. “But you didn’t.”

“What can I do?” asked Jon, desperately trying to escape the madness and the plastic, and oh g-d, the stench of sickly sweet  _ blood  _ in the air. 

He couldn’t escape it, nobody could escape it, and by the same token, nobody was real. Was he crazy? Was he the only sane one in the world? The colors were blinding and they didn’t even exist, and he didn’t know where he was, where he was, where was he, where  _ was he?  _

Panic.

Fear. 

Unknowing.

The creak of a door.

“Excuse me,” said Helen, “But you’re cramping my  _ style.”  _

\---

Tim couldn’t see the door from his side. All he saw was teeth, teeth, teeth, and his boss disappearing. And then the woman- the Nikola- the  _ thing  _ that killed his brother was looming over him, dripping blood and shedding plastic and the very picture of what his brother must have felt before death.

“I’ll kill you,” ground out Tim. “All of you.”

“Will you now?” asked Nikola, her eyebrows raised in disbelief. 

“Tim-” said Jon- was it Jon? “What’s in your hand?”

Tim looked down. “The- It’s the detonator.”

Nikola almost lost her cool, barely containing her fury with a flick of her hands and a “That’s quite enough out of you, I think.”

But Tim saw it, nonetheless. He grinned with his teeth stained with blood and grime, and half his face darkened with soot. “Race you,” he said. “Let’s see if you can run faster than a squeeze of my hand.”

“That  _ toy  _ won’t help you,” said Nikola, but the fear in her eyes shone bright.

“Then come and take it from me,” said Tim. When Nikola didn’t raise a finger, he grinned. “That’s what I thought.”

“Jon,” said Tim, then faltered. “Yeah. Thanks for this. And sorry, I guess. Out of courtesy.”

“This won’t save anyone!” shrieked Nikola. “You aren’t saving anyone! The world won’t be better!” 

“I don’t care,” said Tim. “You sound stressed.”

“You’re not going to save Danny! He’s dead! He’s dead, and I killed him!”

Tim’s face lit up with rage and hurt. “That doesn’t make me want to kill you any less,” he said. “This was never about saving anyone.” He took a deep breath. “This is going to  _ hurt  _ you.”

He pulled the trigger.

As the theater exploded around him, he took in what he thought were going to be his last feelings, thoughts, sounds. The stench of burning plastic. The flames of an inferno. The darkness as his vision faded, his final relief. And a tug on his shirt as he was pulled roughly through a door.

\---

“I’m gonna need you to help me carry this,” said Daisy.

“Wow,” said Melanie, “That’s a lot of tapes.”

“All the ones Gertrude deemed important.”

“So are we going to leave them in the tunnels or carry them all down into the archives?”

“Tunnels,” said Daisy. I don’t think Elias can use his spooky eye powers down there.”

Melanie flexed her wrist as they dropped the large box in the hallway halfway down from Elias’s office. “This near artifact storage?”

“Yeah,” said Daisy. “I thought it would be the best place to drop it since Elias hates coming down here.”

“Fair enough.” Melanie paused. “ Do we wanna go back up, see if we can find the tape with Leitner's death on it?”

“That’s the one Martin wanted,” said Daisy. “Besides, it might help me in my case against him. Yeah, let's check for it.”

“Righty-O,” said Melanie, trying her best not to disturb anything in the tunnels on their way back up.

“So,” said Daisy, “The plan is to grab the tape, put it on the box, and then get the boxes as far away from Elias’s office as we can manage. Somebody will grab us when it’s clear.”

“If anybody lives.”

“Basira’s not going to die. I don’t know about the rest of the crew, but Basira’s smart enough not to get skinned by clowns.”

“It’s not about being  _ smart, _ Daisy. Shit just happens.”

“Really?” asked Daisy. “How did you get that bullet in your leg, then?”

Melanie glared, and pushed open the section of wall back into the institute. “Final tape?” she said.

Daisy smiled. “Let’s do this.”

Things did not go according to plan after those last words. For one, when you’re breaking into somebody's office, you really don’t want them to walk into said office halfway through pulling files out of the desk and tossing them on the floor. You also don’t want them to have evil abilities that let them immediately see what’s going on in your mind. 

“So,” Elias clapped his hands, “Are we looking for the tape where I killed Jurgen Leitner?”

Melanie stared. Daisy froze.

“It’s right here,” said Elias, opening the bottom drawer of a file cabinet. “Melanie, you really didn’t have to throw all my files on the floor. Do you know how hard it’s going to be to get all my employees paid on time, now that the timesheets are all out of order? And to top that all off,  _ you  _ have just caused significant pain to Jon.” He held up the tape. “Besides, it’s going to cause a horrible smell when it burns. If you’ve never smelt burning tape, it really does smell awful.” 

“And,” said Elias, smirking, “You’ve been caught breaking into my office and starting  _ fires.  _ While I’m not going to release you from work, Melanie, do you really want another blemish on your record? ‘Former youtube star Melanie King caught breaking and entering, burning her superior’s files,”’ he said. And with that, dropped the tape into the garbage can, and set the entire thing alight. 

Tape did smell horrible. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tws: Elias typical going into someones mind and pulling out trauma, body horror, doubt of ones own perception, nikola? I don't know what specific triggers to tag so I end up usually just putting people, hence why half the time its just Elias as a tw, because I don't know how to describe his particular brand of creepyness. Anyway so far I'm at a nearly three hundred page long google doc sooo...


	29. A Void

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some Conversations.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Halloween! And Ace Week! I was gonna write a fic for it this week, but then my version of aceness is purely Not writing relationships unless there's an actual plot in the background and not thinking about that at all, so I didn't. I feel illogically bad about that though, so here's me wishing yall a safe and happy Halloween and ace week! Go eat too much candy and wear fun costumes!

“Helen,” Jon said. 

Helen beamed. “Hello! I really wasn’t going to get involved in the archive crew, not  _ again, _ but Sasha cared so much about your well being, and I’d hate to disappoint her.”

“We were almost  _ there!  _ The circus is going to win!”

“Don’t worry,” said Helen. “Tim took care of it.”

“Tim…” Jon paused. “Tim!”

Helen yawned. “Oh, don’t worry. Sasha got to him in time, he’s alive, if a  _ bit  _ scarred.”

“Basira?”

“She’s.. fine, I suppose,” Helen said, wrinkling her nose. “Really, amazingly fine for someone without our help. Then again, she wasn’t in the main vicinity of the blast.”

“So… the unknowing?” Jon asked.

“Over,” said Helen. “Failed.”

Jon breathed a sigh of relief. “Um,” he said, “do I get a door?”

Helen laughed. “Oh, Archivist. Not unless you want to die. Besides, Sasha wants to see you.”

“Why-” Jon’s breath caught in his throat- “Why are you helping me?”

“Didn’t I already say? Sasha likes you,” said Helen. “And you were very….  _ kind  _ to Helen Richardson.”

“How are you and-”

Helen cut off his question. “Do you want a statement?”

Jon looked at her in confusion. “A statement?”

“I gave you a statement when I was real, let’s come full circle, shall we?” She looked at him and grinned. “Alright, then. Turn on your… thing.”

“I don’t-” Jon spluttered, and then looked down. He was, sure enough, holding a tape recorder. “Right. Statement of Helen, taken direct from subject, regarding… regarding Sasha.”

Helen sat down. “Well then,” she said, “Let me tell you how I took over Michael.”

“It was painful. It was painful when I first found the door, and it was painful until I found Sasha. The walls shift, you’ve seen it. The distortion doesn’t want you to love it, it wants to hurt you, and it is a being- a being? made of malice. It hated Michael, because he was forced into it, and it hates anybody else pulled in here. But it didn’t hate me. Yes, it hated Sasha, but I wouldn’t let it have her, because if the distortion wanted me, then it would take Sasha along with me. And even, I think, if it hadn’t wanted me, I would have been able to take it away from Michael because I’m simply  _ stronger  _ than he was. When I was first thrust through that door, you listened to me, you believed that it was a door in that house, and not a trick of my mind. You chased me down and told Michael to give me back, and even though the door this time, was a relief, it was a kind gesture, and I remember that. There’s not many things I care about in this state, but you are one of them. 

When Michael took your friends into the distortion with it, Michael was destabilized. He was unsteady, and just for a moment, there was a slip in his unreality, where he became a real thing. And Sasha and I, we took advantage of that, and ran towards the place in the hallways where he was the most solid. We sat there for weeks, for days, for years, all while I watched Sasha’s pain grow more acute and saw her fade, and I vowed that the only thing in these hallways worth living for would not be consumed. 

I don’t know if I kept that promise. 

Eventually, Michael left the hallway again, and again, it was to talk to you, and he was destabilized once more. There were two doors, facing each other on opposite sides of the room, and that meant that I couldn’t pull Sasha through the door. I could help her, keep her grounded, but I couldn’t pull her through the door, and I couldn’t even tell if she made it through the door when I stepped through. It was a leap of faith, a step of faith, and Sasha made it through.

I think… I think we’re the same now. We’re both the distortion. I have all of the knowledge Michael ever had, and I have all the knowledge Sasha ever had, and she has all of my memories and faults and flaws and she still chose to stay with me. I think that’s love, her deciding that despite me, despite all the ugly thoughts and flaws and stories I was too scared to ever tell anybody in the world, she is going to continue to care about me. 

I care about you, but more importantly, she has a mission, and she cares about you. 

She wants to help the archives with their mission, and our goals are the same, so I am going to help you.”

“Short statement,” said Jon.

Helen sighed. “Yeah, well, I’ve told you a lot about me already.”

“Helen?” Jon said, “I think you’re a good person.” He paused. “Or, if not a person, you’re a good  _ thing. _

“If you thought that,” said Helen, “you’d be very, very wrong.”

\---

Tim felt what the explosion  _ would  _ have done, the way it  _ would  _ have ripped his body in two, and the way he  _ would  _ have died horribly, in that fire and then in the darkness and crushing weight of a building on top of him. 

But he didn’t. He didn’t die in that fire, because instead, he was pulled through a door, into a corridor, faced with a mockery of a face he had once known.

“Why, Tim?” asked Sasha. “Why send yourself on a g-ddamn suicide mission? You would have killed yourself if I wasn’t there to watch you, and you were damn near close to  _ dying. _ ”

“You know why,” said Tim. “You saw what she did to Danny, you saw what that monster is capable of. Why didn’t you let me watch her burn?”

“Because!” she shouted. “Because I’m not letting you die just to watch somebody else die too! I’m not going to let you set yourself on fire just so others burn! She’s dead, Tim. Dead, and now you can move on with your life instead of sitting in your own regret.” She paused, and looked directly at Tim. No- through him. “Quit this fucking job,” she said, “And do something  _ good  _ with your life.”

“I can’t,” said Tim.

“What do you mean? Of course you can, what else do you have to do there?”

“No,” said Tim. “I mean, I physically  _ can’t.  _ Elias made it clear after he came clean about the murders that there was no way any of us could kill him, and there was no way to quit, either.”

“That absolute  _ bastard.”  _

“Tell me about it.” Tim sighed. “The benefits are good, I guess, when you’re not in near death situations.”

“Do you want me to torment him?” asked Sasha.

Tim snorted. “Could you even?”

“Of course. He may have tied his soul to an evil fear god, but he’s still trapped in a mortal body. And if nothing else, I can annoy the hell out of him. Helen can be  _ wonderfully  _ shitty when she wants to.”

Tim grinned. “Hell yes.”

“But Tim,” said Sasha, “Make sure to let yourself live. I’m not Sasha James, but I do want to be friends. If you do, that is.”

Tim considered. “Do you hurt people? Like Nikola?”

“A little. Yes. I guess. I’m a monster Tim, that won’t change. Just because I own the memories of Sasha James doesn’t mean you know me yet.”

“We can be friends,” said Tim slowly, “But not really. Not like I was with you… before.”

“I’m not going to hurt you.”

“I know. But you’re going to hurt other people.”

“Yes,” said Sasha, “Yes, I will.” Sasha paused, and a bright yellow door appeared. “Make sure they know you’re not dead, Tim.”

“Right,” said Tim, and turned his back to Sasha.

\---

Tim and Jon stumbled into the archives at the same time, Jon out of his office door which had turned a lovely lemon, and Tim out of a supply closet, which was a slightly more subdued shade of yellow. Tim just sat down and put his face in his hands after walking out of the door, but Jon stumbled to the closest trash can, retching violently. 

“Jon?” asked Melanie. 

“It’s fine,” said Jon, between gasps of air. “All the clowns are gone.”

“Sasha and Helen,” Tim said, head still in his hands slumped against the wall.

“Where’s Martin?”

“He went home for the day,” said Melanie. “I think anybody deserves a day off after having Elias reach into their mind. Speaking of that, I’m going to go home and have a nice day off.”

“Did Elias…?” Jon faltered.

“Daisy can tell you.”

“Daisy won’t- dammit, Melanie!” Jon turned to Daisy. “What happened?” he asked.

“Elias found us,” she said. “We had to go back into his office to get the Leitner tape, and he found us in it.” Then she blinked. “I’m going home too. Don’t  _ do  _ that, or I’ll rip both your arms off.”

“Do what?”

“Anything, I guess. Whatever spooky shit you have going on.”

Jon sighed. “I just want to sleep for six months straight.”

“That’s called a coma,” said Melanie. 

“G-d,” said Jon, “I wish I was in a coma.”

Melanie didn’t laugh, though her mouth did quirk slightly upwards. Then, she turned to Tim.”Looking a little burned there, buddy,” she said.

Tim gave her the finger. “Sasha and Helen pulled us out of the fire.” he said, and set his jaw. “I don’t know  _ why,  _ I don’t know what they were thinking, but they saved us.”

“Helen told me Sasha cares, and by extension, so does she.”

“Bullshit,” said Tim. “I thought Sasha was good and she’s not, and she’s just another monster, and Helen’s the worst of them all, because she made Sasha do it.”

“Sasha made a choice.”

“Sasha’s not  _ Sasha!  _ She’s told me twice already that she plans on killing people, hurting them, doing what Nikola did.“

“She came back, Tim.”

“No, she didn’t. Something came back, wearing her face, and it’s not the same.” Tim sighed. “Fuck off, Jon. Daisy took the tapes home and we’ll listen tomorrow. I don’t care what you think about Sasha, or Helen, or any of this. I’m pissed, and I’m tired, and I don’t want you around.”

\---

Helen licked her finger, and wiped a smudge of soot off of Sasha’s eyebrow. “Honestly,” she said, “How did you manage to get absolutely  _ covered  _ in stains in the two minutes you were out of your door?”

Sasha glowered, and batted Helen’s hand away. “I did jump into the midst of an inferno to pull Tim out at the last second, I deserve a reprieve from your mother henning.”

“And you did a great job!” said Helen. “I just wish you hadn’t mussed yourself up so much.”

“Oh,  _ come on,”  _ said Sasha.

“You’re adorable when you’re pouty.”

“Not pouting.”

“Of course not,” said Helen, obviously humoring her.

“And you’re one to talk,” said Sasha, smiling. “You got rid of Jon, what? A half hour before I let Tim go? You had plenty of time to clean yourself up.”

“You make a good point, dear,” Helen said. “I do have to credit you for the scorch marks on the door, however. They make the hallways around it look wonderfully vintage.”

Sasha stuck out her tongue. “Once a realtor, always a realtor,” she said.

Helen gasped. “ How dare you?”

“I said what I said.”

“Now who's evil?” said Helen, rubbing Sasha’s eyebrow a bit harder than necessary to clean the soot off.

“Both of us,” said Sasha. “We’re both very evil, as has already been established.”

Helen dusted off Sashas cuffs, and chuckled, looking adoringly at her.

“Hey,” said Sasha, “can you do me a favor?”

“Of course! She considered. “Well, within reason.”

“Do you want to help me piss off Elias?”

Helen stopped in her quest to clean the soot and ash off Sasha, and gave her an unimpressed look.

“Not like, destroy him or anything,” Sasha hurriedly explained. “I know we can’t hurt the eye. Just mess with him a bit.”

Helen raised her eyebrows, begging an explanation.

“Tim asked. And I also hate Elias, having worked under him for five years.”

“How mature,” said Helen.

“Elias doesn’t deserve  _ mature.” _

Helen snorted. “Well, it sounds like great fun. Would you like to get dinner, dear? The trams are always full of fear.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tws: shouting, suicide attempts, self destructive behavior (tim), relationship issues (?) sasha and helen argue because that's how they flirt, but apparently you're supposed to tag that? Idk.  
> Anyway, I do get better at writing helen and sasha. I might take a hiatus during november though, since I'm writing nanowrimo, and that'll take up most of my time. At the least, expect less updates.
> 
> Also!!!! This might have a happy ending! I mean, happy is stretching it, but maybe the world won't end!


	30. A plan gone awry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tapes are listened to. Elias is annoyed.

Elias was not having a good time. 

His entire room was covered in cheap sticky hands, hanging off the walls and ceiling, taunting him.

There was a squelching sound, and one fell off the ceiling and stuck to his glasses. He sighed. “Sasha,” he yelled into the void.

“Hello, Elias!” said Sasha. 

“Why?”

“Why what? Oh,” she said, smirking, “I see you’ve done some redecoration with your office. Leaving the eye motif behind?”

“Sa-sha,” he said, carefully separating each syllable out. 

“E-lias.”

“What do you want from me, Sasha?”

“Absolutely nothing,” Sasha said. “You’re a dick, and you’re never going to change, and frankly, I would kill you if it wasn’t a death sentence for the archive team.”

“Still hung up on them, then?” Elias asked. 

“Yes,” said Sasha. “I’m deception incarnate, and I  _ still  _ manage to have more morality than you.”

“And I don’t care at all, so spare me the talk of why I should. I never did, and I’m not going to start now, when I’m so close to the end of the rope.”

“So close to the….” Sasha squinted. “What?”

Damn.

“I’m the keeper of knowledge,” said Elias, desperately trying to deflect. “Not the giver.” 

“For a keeper of knowledge, I don’t think you ever learned to lie.”

“Why would I need to?”

“Because I don’t owe you shit, and you can't do jack squat to me anymore, so there’s absolutely nothing stopping me telling everybody what you’re up to.”

“Go ahead, tell them,” said Elias. “It’s not like they listened to you when you were human, why would they listen to a monster?”

“You don’t scare me,” said Sasha, “And you can’t hurt me either, so stop trying to reach into my mind. I can feel your blood dripping on my walls, stop  _ soiling  _ them.”

“Real Sasha never cared about the state of the walls.”

“Real Sasha didn’t have Helen to care for her.”

“And how is it,” asked Elias, “Having a partner that knows everything about you from the time you chipped your tooth in secondary school to the way you cried when you jumped out that window?”

“Really?” Sasha laughed. “All that searching, you’re up to your elbow in madness and all you have is a dig at my girlfriend and the memory of a suicide attempt?” She sneered down at him. “But to answer your question, I’d imagine that it's the same as when you talk to anybody at all. Except on my end, it’s  _ equal,  _ and I don’t take pleasure in our pain.”

“If that’s all,” Sasha said, “I have a date tonight. But I’ll be seeing you, and your life is going to be a living  _ hell  _ thanks to me.”

Elias sighed. He wished Michael was back. At least Michael didn’t have a personal vendetta against him, only against the Archivist. 

\---

Tim had tried to go home three times, and all three times, he’d gotten as far as the bus stop before he felt something  _ watching  _ him, or something lurking in the darkness, or something strange on the pathway. 

So he was back at the archives, worse for the wear and with an adrenaline level of one thousand, unable to sleep, and unable to even lie down because Jon was on the cot in the storage room, and Tim wasn’t going to risk having to interact with him. 

So he went into Jons office, took out a tape recorder and the recently retrieved box of tapes, and went into the tunnels to listen. 

All he was really planning on doing was fostering his sadness more, maybe scaring himself to his wits end as a punishment for…  _ everything.  _ He certainly wasn’t planning on seeing the bright glint of  _ eyes  _ when he went through the trapdoor. 

“Holy fucking shit!” he said, and jumped backwards, dropping the box of tapes.

“Hands up, or I’ll shoot,” came the voice. 

“Daisy?”

“Hands up where I can see them. Now.”

“Daisy, it’s Tim.”

“I know bloody well who it is. Hands up, and what are you doing down here?”

Tim rolled his eyes, but complied with Daisy’s orders, putting his hands in the air. “I couldn’t sleep,” he said.

“And so you came all the way to the institute to listen to tapes underneath the institute just because you ‘couldn’t sleep?’ Sounds likely,” she scoffed.

“No,” said Tim, “Jon was in the cot and I couldn’t stomach being at home, so I came to the one place the eye doesn’t reach so I could figure out what the fuck is going on without being seen. Happy now?

Daisy actually lowered her gun at the admission. “Yeah,” she said, “I get it.” 

“What?” 

“Being  _ seen.  _ I hate it.”

“So that’s why you’re here?” asked Tim.

“No,” said Daisy. “I’m following you.”

“How long have you been-”

“Only since you entered the institute for the second time and left again. I thought you were up to something, and it seems like you were.”

“Yeah,” said Tim, “What I was up to was having trauma- induced insomnia.”

There was a long pause before Tim spoke again. “Do you want to listen to these tapes?”

“No. I’ve had enough g-ddamn tapes.” 

“Suit yourself,” said Tim, “But don’t disturb me, because I’m going to sit right here and turn them on.”

True to his word, Tim turned on the tape as soon as Daisy turned the corner. Most of it was uninteresting to him. Horror stories, stopping rituals, blood and gore that was enough to make his skin  crawl and his blood boil. Each tape was only about twenty minutes, so Tim listened. And listened. And listened. 

Finally, he got to the last tape in the box, and there was something about it that… well, he didn't want to pick it up. It felt dirty. Ashy. But it was the last one, and somehow Tim knew that, in the dark of the tunnels, this was the tape he  _ needed  _ to hear. He pressed play. 

_ “Right, if you are listening to this, then it is likely that- no, let’s not beat around the bush. If you’re listening to this, it means I’m dead. And you have chosen to be my replacement as head archivist.” _

Tim listened with rapt attention as Gertrudes voice spilled out of the tape recorder, strangely amplified. 

_ “Hopefully this means you, Sasha.” _

Tim paused the recorder, and took a deep, shuddering breath. Sasha could have been where Jon was. He could have been helping her, figuring this out with her, instead of with Jon. Anger burned in his gut, but he pushed it down. This tape was important, no matter how  _ unfair  _ it was that Sasha didn’t get to be the Archivist. 

_ “All I can do is assure you that I am deadly serious.” _

No shit. They’d been eaten by worms, blown up, and had a friend stolen from them. Of course it was serious. Of course he believed Gertrude. But that wasn’t the point. 

_ “For the institute serves variously known as: The eye, It Knows You, the Beholding, the ceaseless watcher. It is the fear of being watched and judged, and having your secrets known.” _

Yeah. Tim sighed, and placed his head in his hands. If only they’d had this tape  _ before  _ the circus,  _ before  _ the worms.

_ “Oh yes. On the subject of Elias: Trust nothing he says.” _

Tim paused. He’d never trusted him, but if he was more than just a nuisance… that would be bad. Gertrude’s next sentence gave him a shock. 

_ “He has certain… abilities of clairvoyance, which allow him to perceive out of any eye, real or symbolic, so be wary.” _

Damn. That’s how he knew. That’s why…. that’s why Tim didn’t feel watched down here. He had thought that Elias’s powers only reached as far as pushing and pulling trauma out of people’s heads, seeing out of real eyes, but this was much, much worse. It was good he had come down here, where Elias couldn’t see. But if Elias couldn’t see down here, Tim was going to have to find a way to let the rest of the team know. And then he was going to have to play dumb around Elias until it worked in his favor. 

_ “But if you are hearing it then- good luck. Do what you have to do.” _

Gertrude sighed, and Tim sat with his mouth wide open. Of course. Of course there was more, and this was worse than being trapped in a job that could kill him because no, he was also going to save the world more than once, and sacrifice others, and  _ die  _ doing exactly what he’d already tried to die doing. And as soon as he got home, he was going to have to cut the eyes out of everything in his house. A door creaked open on the tape. 

_ “Are you finished?” _

_ “Jürgen! I told you to stay in the tunnels!” _

Yup. It really would have been nice to know that Jurgen Leitner was living in the tunnels before Elias had killed him.

_ “Paper burns well. Petrol burns better.” _

_ “I always forget your pyromaniac streak.” _

_ “Mm. Remind me to tell you about Agnes some time.” _

Tim paused the recorder. That was what her plan had been, that was why she had died, that was it. Burn down the institute. So simple, something that had worked wonders with other rituals, but something that he hadn’t  _ thought  _ of. So that was what he was going to have to convince Jon to do, regardless of how stubbornly against it he was. 

With shaking hands, Tim slipped the tape into his pocket, and brought the rest of the box back to the archives, hoping desperately Elias hadn’t been watching his descent. 

\---

Jon groaned, and pushed himself off the cot. If he was going to insist on spending the night in the archives, the least he could do to take care of himself was get a decent bed. He suddenly felt  _ very  _ bad for Martin. 

Of course, part of the reason his entire body ached was because he’d just been thrust into the Unknowing, almost lost his best friend- no, his colleague who hated him, and to top it off he was…. he didn’t know. The world was clearer around him, and he could smell the blood clearer than ever before. 

Might as well get some work done if he was going to be spending the night parylized by fear in the archives. He sighed, rolled off the cot, and padded to his office, where he could see a shape moving in the darkness. Every muscle in his body tightened, as he watched the figue- oh  _ g-d,  _ it was going for the tapes in the closet.

“Don’t,” he said, pointing a torch at… Tim?

“Jon,” said Tim, voice flat and irritated. 

“What are you- How are you- Why are you in my office?”

“I couldn't sleep, so I went to listen to tapes, and you keep all the important ones in your office. How many people, do you think, are going to find it necessary to treat me like a bomb waiting to explode?”

“I don’t know,” said Jon. “What is this about? Wait a second- did you listen to the rest of  _ Gertrudes  _ tapes?”

“Yeah,” said Tim. “As much as I hate you, I need to show you something.”

“I don’t think-”

“Listen, Jon,” Tim hissed, “This is important. Maybe I can be less pissed at you if you take me at my word, for  _ once.”  _

That did the trick. Jon followed Tim, mutely into the dark of the tunnels. 

_ “Right, if you are listening to this, then it is likely that- no, let’s not beat around the bush. If you’re listening to this, it means I’m dead. And you have chosen to be my replacement as head archivist.” _

Jon’s breath caught in his throat, and Tim leveled a glare that neither of them could see at him.

\---

“Did she- Is that when-?”

“She knew,” said Tim. “She knew about the institute, and the archives, and she was going to  _ end  _ it.”

“That’s how she died, isn’t it?”

“Trying to burn down the archives.”

Jon stared at Tim, green eyes reflected in brown. “I reckon,” he said, “This means we have our next move planned out for us.”

Neither of them breathed. Neither of them spoke as they silently stared at each other, daring the other one to refute the claim. 

“Burn it-”

“Shh. I don’t know how deep Elias can see.”

“He can’t see down here. Don’t you feel it? We aren’t Watched in the tunnels.”

“I’m always Watched,” said Jon. “But yes, the next thing we have to do is what Gertrude failed to.”

“What makes you so certain that we can do it when she couldn’t?

Jon took a deep breath, his seared flesh creaking as he moved. So scarred after nigh two years in the institute. “We’ll have all hands on deck.”

Thump. Thump. Thump. The deliberate steps of somebody creeping closer, trying not to be seen. 

“Behind me,” Jon breathed, and Tim grunted his discomfort at being manhandled.

“Tim?”

Tim breathed a sigh of relief. “Daisy.”

“Why did you bring him down here?” Her teeth were pristine white, flecked only with crimson blood smears, and…  _ sharp. _

“Tapes. Daisy, we need to-”

“No.”

“Daisy-”

“I’m still with the police, I could-”

“ _ Daisy.”  _ Jon said firmly and Daisy, surprisingly, shut up.

“One minute of your time,” said Tim. 

Daisy breathed out. “Nobody would look for your bodies down here. So I still have the upper ground.”

“Noted,” said Jon. “Elias can see everywhere. He’s doing a… a  _ ritual.  _ The same way the circus did.”

“And we blew up the circus,” said Tim.

“Gertrude was going to… well… use her pyrotechnic abilities to stop his ritual.”

Daisy looked surprised. “Gertrude could create fire?”

“If she had a fuck ton of gasoline,” said Tim.

“I don’t think it’s safe,” said Jon. “Even though Tim says Elias can’t see us in the tunnels, I think it’s wise not to directly mention this.”

“So you want to-?”

“Yeah,” said Tim. 

“Alright,” said Daisy. 

Jon blinked. “You’ll help us?”

“Best idea you’ve had in a while, burning this-”

“ _ Shhh!” _

“Right. Do you want me to tell Basira?”

“Yeah. Oh, and-” said Tim- “Make sure there aren’t any  _ eyes  _ in your apartment. And don’t tell Basira until you’re down here.”

“No… eyes?”

“Elias can see out of any eye, real or imagined. Don’t let him.”

Jon frowned, and looked at Tim. “Won’t it be  _ more  _ suspicious if we all suddenly got rid of any eye pictures in our flats?”

Tim cursed. 

“...Tim?” asked Jon.

“Yeah?”

“Can you let Martin and Melanie know what the plan is? I know- well, I don’t think they  _ like  _ me very much, and I don’t want to bother them any more than I have to.”

“Who would?” Tim rolled his eyes. “You’re the most obtuse person in this world, Jon.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tws: Elias mind shit, police corruptness, paranoia
> 
> Nanowrimo is not going well I know I said I was gonna do it but like,,, hard.


	31. A Doomed Quest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thoughts on fire.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I gave up on nano!

Telling Melanie and Martin about the newfound security system in the archives would have to wait, because the next day, Martin was attacked by beetles on the way to work. 

He ran into the institute, panting, and Tim had to get the tweezers to pull off the ones that had partway burrowed into his skin. 

“I don’t think-” he panted- “It’s safe to go outside.”

“Stopping the unknowing left some sort of mark on us,” said Jon, furrowing his brow. “The other things… they know we’re powerful now.”

“We aren’t,” said Tim. 

“No. I mean- we’ve done what Gertrude spent her life doing. Stopping their rituals. And now everybody knows that we can, and they’re out for blood.”

“Basira,” said Melanie, and Martin looked up from where he was sitting on the floor. 

“Shit,” he said. “Has anyone seen her since the unknowing?”

“Daisy was in the tunnels last night,” said Tim. “If anybody knows where Basira is, it’ll be her.”

Jon nodded. “Can you grab her, Tim?”

In different circumstances perhaps, Tim would have made it clear he wasn’t going to take orders from Jon. But this time? Tim just nodded, and ran to retrieve her. 

“Martin,” said Jon, turning to him, “Are you okay?” 

Martin smiled, and immediately winced. “I think there’s still some pincers stuck in my face,” he said, “But hey, it can’t be worse than the worms.”

Jon paled. “Martin,” he said, “Remember what the worms could do, they made you into a flesh hive- and you became part of them. Martin, what if that’s going to happen to you to, we need to tell somebody, we can’t let this-”

“Jon. These things weren’t trying to take me as theirs, it’s okay,” said Martin. “I don’t think it could, unless I wanted it too.”

“The eye,” nodded Jon. “Of course. None of the other entities could claim you, because you’re under the protection of the eye.”

“Unless,” said Martin, “I chose to align myself with another entity. But don’t worry,” he added hastily. “I don’t plan on selling my soul to anyone.”

“Good.” 

Tim came panting up from the tunnels, followed by Daisy. “She hasn’t seen Basira anywhere.”

“If she’s dead-” growled Daisy.

“She’s not,” said Jon. 

“What makes you so sure, you fucking smug little prick-”

“Because Elias would already be down here to inform us that we need to find a new archival assistant.”

Daisy blinked. 

“So where is she?”

“Chatting with Fiston,” said Jon immediately. Then he paused. “I don’t know how I knew that.”

Daisy sighed. “She’s okay, then?”

“Yes,” said Jon. 

“But we’ll deal with your spooky bullshit later,” said Daisy. “You’re not off the hook.”

“Noted.”

Basira came down the stairs to the archives and Daisy rushed to meet her. “Basira,” she said. “Are you okay?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Martin got attacked by beetles,” said Daisy, jerking a thumb in his direction, “And Jon doesn’t think it’s safe for us to be outside the institute anymore.” 

Basira frowned. “I’ve been fine.”

“Even so,” said Daisy, “I agree with Jon. For once, in his measly little life.”

Jon glared, but didn’t object to Daisy’s statements. “There’s… another thing,” he said. 

Tim groaned. “What. How can it get worse? How, pray tell, Jon, can it get any worse?”

“Never ask that,” said Basira.

“It’s not actually  _ bad  _ news,” said Jon, looking down. ‘I had- Well, I had a meeting- lead to follow up before the Unknowing. Jude- you know her? She gave me an address and I want to see if there’s information about…  _ it  _ there.”

“Jude?” asked Tim. “The crazy woman who burned you?”

John grimaced, touching his face. “Yes,” he said, but quickly perked up. “The scars are mostly gone now, though. I don’t know what Nikola used on my skin, but it was extremely effective. If she wasn't dead, I would have already called her and asked for the products.”

“Concerning,” said Basira, “But nobody gives a shit. What about this ‘contact?’”

“I actually have two,” said Jon. “One is Michael- not the dead one,” he added hurriedly, “A different one. And the other contact is a woman from the statements. I actually don’t know- well, I don’t know her specifically, but she mentioned a ritual, and I’d like to check up on it.”

“Who is it?” asked Tim.

“Manuela Dominguez.”

“You deal with Crew,” said Tim, “and I’ll take Manuela.”

“Tim-” objected Jon, “I don’t want you to get hurt trying to help me-”

Tim shot Jon a look of disgust. “I’m not doing this for you,” he said. “I actually have a lot of questions and need to get away from this damn place, so spare me your self-righteousness.”

“Right,” said Jon, deflating.

“I can come with you, Tim,” said Martin. “It’s at the north pole.” He looked around. ‘What? I read my fair share of statements.”

“No,” said Tim. “I need to get away from everything.”

Martin made a move to protest, but Jon put a hand on his shoulder, anchoring him to the ground. “Martin,” he said. “He needs to do this alone. I need to see Crew alone too. You’ll be most helpful in the institute. Besides, I think Tim has something to show you.” Jon shot a glare at Tim, who looked confused, but quickly remembered the tape. 

“Right,” said Tim. “Come on, Martin.”

“And Melanie,” Jon added.

“And Melanie.”

Tim left the room, and Jon sighed, and made a move for his office. 

“Wait,” said Basira.

“Yes?” asked Jon. “Did Daisy tell you…?”

“Yeah. But you’ve been weird.” Jon looked puzzled, so Basira forged onward. ‘You know things you shouldn’t. Martin trusts you, but I don’t.”

“What…. What can I do-?”

“Nothing,” said Basira. “But I want you to know I have my eye on you.”

\---

“What is this?”

“Shhh!” said Tim. Melanie made a move to protest, and Martin reached out his hand to stop her, but thought better of it when he remembered the knives she had. “Just a little farther, alright, Melanie?”

“How do I know you’re not taking me here to kill me?” she asked. “I get in the way of your bullshit investigations too much, and now you want me gone for good?”

“Do you honestly think we could take you, Melanie?” asked Martin.

“I think you’d  _ try. _ ”

“Honestly-”

“Shut up,” said Tim. “It’s safe now.”

“Safe from  _ what?”  _ asked Melanie.

Martin looked at Tim, realization dawning. “From Elias,” he said.

Tim snapped. “That’s right. He can’t see us here, and I need to show you a tape while we’re in his blind spot.”

Melanie rolled her eyes, and made a move to leave. “Honestly, a tape? What is it with you and tapes?”   


“Just  _ listen,”  _ said Tim.

Melanie turned on her heel to face Tim, and crossed her arms. “Fine,” she said. 

\----

Martin and Melanie sat, pale as ghosts.

“So that’s it,” said Martin. “If we burn down the institute, this all ends.”

“Do we live?” asked Melanie.

“Yes,” said Tim. “We burn down the institute, we’re free, because there’s no institute to be bound to.”

“And Elias-” Melanie smiled. “A heart can’t live without the body, so he’s dead too.”

“Great,” said Tim. “All in favor of torching this place?”

All three of them raised their hands. “Good,” said Tim, “because I was going to do it with or without you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I cant think of any tws this chapter would need!
> 
> Anyway I got a tiktok and I'm using it to share 1 minute videos about my interests, which is great, because I can pause it and so I don't stutter as much any everyone has to hear me talk about pirates.


	32. A creeping darkness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Manuela makes an appearance!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anyway sometimes I write too much purple prose and I'm going to post it anyway since truthfully most of what I write is poetry do not judge me for my flowery language and puns.  
> Also I wrote in some latin bits since I hc Sasha was a latin nerd, exitus acta probat means "the ends justify the means"

Tim paused in his packing to stare at the polaroid of Sasha. She was so different now, so different from the circles and curves she’d been before. The picture, more than anything, proved to him the woman he’d known was different than the woman he knew now. Woman? She’d been very clear that she wasn’t anything he thought. No matter. He was either going to end up dead, or he was going to end up with information, and at this point, he didn’t particularly care which one it was. 

Tim knew Jon was stopping by the archives before he went off to see Crew, but Tim had no love for the archival staff, and he didn’t particularly want to be doted on. Besides, he didn’t think he’d get sick from not being at the institute if he was going on a work trip.

So in the silence of the morning, he headed to the docks. The fog rolled at his ankles as he walked, and the early morning mist obscured the lights, so everything had an air of not being wanted. Tim ignored it. He was glad of the feeling of not being watched, or at least the appearance of it, because the darkness and quiet of morning was a foil to the institute’s fluorescent lights and g-ddamn  _ eyes.  _

The boat, the open sea as he headed to Manuela, that would be a welcome relief. “Almost a vacation,” he thought, “if vacations were evil, made you seasick, and ended with most likely being murdered.”

\---

It was a long ride. A week and a half was predicted, and the isolation and roaring waves of the sea made it all the more unsettling. He pondered briefly why he didn’t just ask Sasha to bring him a door, but he knew why. He wasn’t going anywhere close to her… her home? No. Her _ self.  _ The hours spent dry heaving and shivering on the side of the boat were much more preferable. 

No matter where he was on the boat, the wind stung his face and made his eyes water. Several times, Sasha showed up to offer him a door, but he refused, making idle chatter and pretending that she wasn’t a monster. Pretending that he didn’t hear the shrieks of pain from inside her door, pretending that his jokes made her laugh, not smile until he had to look away with nausea that  _ wasn’t  _ from the seasickness. 

The conversations always went the same. “How are you?” she would ask, and he would scoff. 

“There’s a chest of gold at the bottom of the ocean,” he would say, or “I caught a swordfish yesterday, you should have seen it.”

Regular jokes he would make with regular Sasha, and he was always half expecting, half hoping to hear her trademark wheezing cackle as she covered her mouth and tried to suppress it. 

Real Sasha would have smacked his shoulder lightly, told him that seriousness was a virtue, and he would have responded by sticking out his tongue. The conversation would continue, jokingly, friendly, easy, until one of them was tired. 

This Sasha... this Sasha just frowned. She would look at him strangely, and tell him that no, there was no gold, and his swordfish was a lie, and he should not lie. Fake Sasha turned pale- as pale as she could- when he was anything less than literal. This Sasha was deathly afraid. 

Tim didn’t know what of, that was the awful part. Day four on the ship, and he was already hoping she would stop coming. He knew it hurt her, and he was sure she knew that it would hurt him. He told her this, that she was afraid, and that it was nearly a week on the ship, and the antsy tapping of her fingers stilled. 

“I’m not afraid,” she said, as her fingers glitched in and out of reality. “And time is meaningless. You’ve been here for a hundred days and a hundred hours and no time at all.” she caught wind of his expression. “But I’m glad you have it,” she said. “Time, I mean. I think it helps you. It’s always there.”

Day seven on the ship, and he finally asked her the question that had been itching at his mind. “Are you afraid of me?” he asked. 

“No,” she said. “Please don’t do this, though. I think- well, I’m not afraid. But I don’t want you to do this.”

“I have to,” said Tim, not knowing what he had to do, but knowing it all the same. 

“You have a choice,” she said. “Please, Tim.” 

‘You didn’t have a choice.”

“I did.”

“Death or no isn’t a choice!”

“Yes it is! I made my choice and I was wrong!” She sounded surprised by her sudden outburst. “I mean… I don’t know. Helen keeps me here, keeps me insane, and I love her and it but… But you don’t deserve it.”

“You didn’t either.”

“No,” said Sasha, “Sasha James didn’t deserve it either. But Sasha James had a mission.”

“So do I.”

“A suicide mission isn’t a proper mission.”

Day nine. It was the last day on the boat, and Tim hadn’t talked to the thing that called itself Sasha since he had pushed it off the side of the boat and it had fallen through a horizontal door. He missed her, somehow. He missed the conversations, because they weren’t the same, but at least they weren’t a mockery. And she came again, as he prepared to dock the boat in the frigid antarctic cold. 

“Don’t do this, Tim. Please.”

He looked at her sadly. “What was it? Anything is moral if the alternative is an apocalypse.”

“That’s what Gertrude thought,” said Sasha, “Exitus Acta Probat, and she created Micheal with that phrase.”

“I don’t know what I’m doing!” he burst out. “But whatever it is, I’m doing it because I have to. And-” his voice broke- “I don’t know what it is.”

She put a hand on his shoulder. It sliced through the coat, leaving a cold gash on him, and she withdrew her hand as quickly as she had extended it. 

And gone she was, through another invisible door. Tim sighed, and began to walk towards the one place he was certain he wouldn’t be seen. 

\---

Walking right into the weird temple of darkness without knocking was not the best idea Tim had.

It was dark. 

“Very dark,” Tim thought, and immediately ducked as a solid bolt of that very same darkness nearly skewered his head on the wall. 

“What the fuck?” he yelled, hoping that the voice of whoever was trying to  _ kill  _ him would betray their position. 

No such luck, as the laughter from his pursuer simply rattled around the wide empty room. “At least I know I’m being hunted by a woman,” he thought, then immediately recalled his thought. That assumption wouldn’t do jack shit.

“I come in peace,” he shouted. 

Laughter echoed louder within the darkness. “The eye doesn’t come to the dark for peace,” the person said. 

“I hate that fucking place!” Tim yelled back. “If I live longer than the next couple of seconds, I’m going to torch it!” He winced, hoping Elias couldn’t see him here, but to his surprise, that  declaration stilled the attacks. 

“You’re going to… burn it down?”

“Shh!” Tim said. “Elias can see us everywhere.”

“Not here. The dark is a blind spot.”

“Uh, yeah,” said Tim. “Speaking of the dark, can we get some lights on in here? A little unsettling, being in the pitch black.”

“No,” said the person. “I won’t talk to you with the lights on.” They paused. “I’m Manuela Dominguez. Now you know who I am. That means you own part of me, so the trade is the dark.”

Tim held up his hands, sure Manuela could tell what he was doing without seeing it. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, crazy lady, but can I have a chair?” He considered. “Actually, I could use a red bull too, if you have one of those.”

“I don’t,” she said, “But if you come with me, we can sit down.”

Tim followed. He had no illusions here that if she wanted him dead, he would be, so it wouldn’t hurt to travel further into the darkness. 

“What does the eye want from me?” she asked. 

“Nothing,” Tim said. A lie, but true enough in practice. Whatever Jon wanted him here for, it wasn’t important. “I want to hear about your religion.”

Manuela stilled. “Is this a trap?” she asked. “What do you want from me, really?”

“I want to hear about your god,” Tim said truthfully. “Aren’t servants of the eye supposed to be curious? I want to know about you. I want to know what you’ve done, what you do, why you serve the dark.”

“Servants of the eye use the information they glean,” she said. “Knowledge for knowledge's sake is foolish.”

“I just escaped a circus of evil clowns,” Tim said. “Maybe some of that foolery rubbed off on me.”

She snorted. “Maybe. But I think you have deeper reasons for wanting to know about my god.”

“Maybe so,” said Tim, “and maybe not. But you want to tell someone, and I’m here as a willing listener, so you’re going to tell me regardless of misgivings.”

“Cocky,” she said. “But I will.”

And the story began. 

“Once upon a time,” she said, “We were thriving. The church was growing, and recruiting, and we had a worldwide network of members.”

“What happened to them?” asked Tim. “I mean, I don’t see anybody but you here.”

She glared. “Let me talk. But yes, I’m the last- the only one left.”

“Because?”

“Because of Gertrude. She was a force of nature, something to be reckoned with, and she beat us down.” Manuela looked wistfully upwards. “We had everything. I had created something I had never dreamt of- a sun made of darkness. When I told others in our field, they laughed at me. Scorned me, told me that I was silly and didn’t know how to do the very things I had studied for years to master. I suppose that’s what it’s like for women when they go into science. Nonetheless, I persisted. Despite the laughter and the faithfulness in the task I had set for myself, I was able to create a sun made entirely of darkness. Do you know what a dark sun is? What it really is, classified not by the whims of people who think they know science but do not? It’s a type of black hole, one small enough that it doesn’t destroy the world, one large enough that it creates the utter darkness that defines it, and one just the right size to pull you in.

Darkness is not just there, it is all consuming, it pulls people further inside, because the light is simply  _ there,  _ but the darkness is the real force to be reckoned with.” She took a deep breath. 

“The darkness will grow! It will pull others in, and I am simply biding my time waiting for my sun to grow. It will consume all!” She was breathing heavily, and looked at Tim. Well- he thought she looked at him. It was pitch black.

He let out a low whistle. “Wow,” he said. “You really think this is going to work?”

“Of course it will work! Darkness always prevails! Eventually.”

“And yet,” said Tim, sweeping his hand to examine the chapel, “You’re alone, trapped her, with no followers to help you and no way to know anything about the outside world. I bet you don’t even know that Gertrude died.”

Manuela took a sharp breath. “She what?”

“Yeah,” said Tim, “I work for a different asshole archivist. But the point is the dark isn’t going to prevail, not if you continue like this.”

She raised a hand toward him, darkness solidifying in her palm. 

“Woah,” he said, leaning back in his chair. “Not an insult, just a fact. and I want to help you with… whatever this is.”

She glared suspiciously at him. “Why?”

“Because you’re the only one that can help me conceal things from the eye,” he said, “And I’ll help anyone that hates the institute. But the first thing you need to do is find some place to keep your destructive sun.” 

“You can’t have it,” she said. 

“I don’t want it. But I know a friend that can keep good hold of it while you grow, and if you still need it, she’ll give it back to you.”

“No,” said Manuela. 

Tim sighed. “Listen.  _ Look.  _ It’s trapping you here, taking away your power, binding you to this place. You can’t leave the darkness, you can’t take it anywhere, you can’t  _ go  _ anywhere with it  attached to you like a ball and chain. Sasha?” he called.

Sasha appeared, and in the neon glow of the otherwise dark room, Manuela paled even further than seemingly possible, and jumped back. 

“Like a vampire,” Tim thought. 

“Manuela,” he said, “This is my… my  _ friend  _ Sasha. She can keep the sun for you. She’ll give it back if you say the word, but you need to remove it from the dimension.”

“How do I know you aren’t trying to trick me?” Manuela asked. 

Tim grinned. “You don’t,” he said. “What is it called? A leap of faith. A leap into the darkness, and after all, isn’t that what you enjoy?”

With quivering hands, Manuela placed her sun into copper colored hands, and the door swung shut. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tws: suicidal thoughts, discussions of lack of choice, religious undertones.   
> I called in sick from work today because sometimes shots make me sick and so i figured I'd write and then post, also I still have no idea how to tw this so if there's anything you'd like me to include feel free to message me.


	33. A Falling Titan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yooo it's mike crew!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The fairchilds can make a little appearance, as a treat

It was never a good day when you had to meet with servants of an evil fear god. It was never good when those servants of fear threw you off a building. 

Here Jon was. Falling. He had been falling for a long time, and frankly it was getting rather boring. One can only be terrified for so long until the monotony set in.

Jon wished he’d brought a book.

And just at that thought, he was yanked back to reality. Harshly, back to the balcony cafe he and Mike were getting lunch on, and right back in his seat as if nothing had happened. He glanced nervously at the sky, as if it was going to try another trick if he wasn’t vigilant. 

Mike laughed. “Relax,” he said. “I don’t like prying questions, so don’t ask any of those, and we’ll be fine.”

Jon stayed silent. 

“Right,” said Mike. “You’re the archivist, so that's’ what you do.” He leaned back in his seat. “My scar, wasn’t it?...”

\---

“Right. Off you go, then,” said Mike. 

“But- you- er…” 

“Take my mercy and  _ go,  _ archivist,” said Mike.

Jon stumbled away from his seat, the vertigo nearly making him fall again, and there was a knock on the door. 

Wild eyed fury was present in Mike’s eyes. “I thought you said you came alone?” he growled. 

“I did-” said Jon. “Wait-”

Daisy stepped through the door. 

“This man,” said Daisy “Is he human?”

Jon stared between Mike and Daisy, glancing at Daisy's bared teeth and the silver glint in her eyes. She was ready for a kill, and Jon had no illusions about her prey. 

He looked at Mike, eyes wide with fear. 

He looked at Daisy and saw the way she was ready to rip into either of the men. 

“Yes,” he lied. “Yes, he’s human.”

Daisy didn’t believe it, Jon could tell. But Jon wasn’t a bad actor. And the threat of death was certainly a motivator. 

“Can I go back to my tea?” he asked, sitting down in the chair that was once falling.

Daisy scoffed. “I don’t believe you have friends,” she said. 

Mike jumped in. “Yeah-,” he said. “Yeah, I haven’t seen Jon since-” he glanced at Jon, and paused. 

“University,” Jon filled in. 

“University!” said Mike enthusiastically. “And I was just catching up about-” he once again looked at Jon helplessly. 

“My Job. The institute. It’s quite odd, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” said Mike. “Yeah, I work in, um,”

“Skydiving,” said Jon. “He’s a trainer.” 

”Crazy lives, huh?”

Daisy looked suspiciously between the pair. “Right,” she said. “I still don’t believe you. You think the crazy man you’re  _ lying  _ to me about will save you?” She raised her gun. 

“Mike!”

“What? Oh!”

Daisy fell. Not physically, of course, but her eyes went blank and she crumpled to the floor. 

Basira burst into the door. “Daisy,” she said. “Daisy, he’s not the person you want to be hunting-” Basira paused. “What did you do to her?” she asked.

“I- shit.” said Mike as Basira raised her own gun. He ran. 

Jon glanced at Basira, still firing into the wall, and Daisy slowly regained consciousness, and ran after Mike.

Jon grabbed onto the tail of Mike’s coat as soon as he caught up with him causing both men to sprawl into the bushes. 

Mike scrambled up. “What was- were you setting me up?”

“No!” said Jon. “I didn’t know they’d be there either, I- I stopped them from killing you!”

“Like hell,” growled Mike. “You brought them straight to me.”

“No,” said Jon. “Daisy’s not after you, she barely knows who you are-” Realization dawned. “She was- she was after  _ me.”  _

“I stopped her from killing you,” said Jon. “I need a place to go to lose Daisy on my trail until Basira gets hold of her.” 

“Daisy… That’s the blonde, right?”

“Right,” Jon panted. 

“Alright,” said Mike. “I can take you where I’m going. But you  _ owe  _ me.”

“Deal,” said Jon as Daisy and Basira started firing once more.

“Deep breath.”

The sky ate them. 

\---

Jon came back to reality in a very large mansion. 

Not in a bed in the mansion, no. He was laying on the floor with an excited looking old man standing over him. Prodding his forehead with a cane. He blinked slowly, and the old man started with delight. 

“Mike did say he’d brought a visitor!” he said. “I didn’t think it would be the  _ archivist.”  _ Glancing down at Jons befuddled expression, he held out a hand. “Simon. Simon Fairchild at your service. Although technically, you’re at  _ my  _ service, since we saved you from a very angry hunter.”

“You’re in statements,” said Jon. 

“I am!”

“You’re-  _ This  _ is where Mike brought me?”

Simon frowned. “No need to be so rude about it, my friend. You know, when  _ I  _ was a boy, we never insulted the houses of the people that so mercifully saved us.”

“No,” said Jon, sitting up. “No- I’m just surprised, is all.”

Simon’s smile returned immediately. “Well then!” he said. I’m sure Elias would love it if I would return his archivist. And  _ my,  _ wouldn’t it be nice to have a favor owed from Elias?”

“Wait, bring me back?”

“Yes! We’ve kept you for far to long and have no use for an archivist except as a bargaining chip.”

“Please- please don’t,” Jon said helplessly. “I need- well, can Elias see here?”

“He knows you’re here! He can’t see you or read your mind, though.”

“Please,” said Jon. “Give me one day to lay low here, then you’ll be owed by both Elias and me.”

“Very well,” said Simon. “I wonder if Mike wants to talk to you again, anyhow.”

Jon blinked. “Just like that?”

“Not my war to fight,” said Simon. 

\---

“I did not want to talk to you again,” said Mike. 

“Oh. Well, could I have the WiFi password?”

“What?”

“The WiFi password. I don’t get service out here.”

“Why do you need it?” asked Mike.

“I wanted to order gasoline and lighters without Elias seeing it. He’d be very concerned if he saw me ordering and stocking more gasoline than one person needs, but if I can order it here and stage a distraction on the day it’s meant to arrive, he might remain none the wiser about it.”

“Why?”

“Why the gasoline?” Jon asked. “Better I don’t tell you. You won’t be an accomplice that way.”

Mike groaned. “I never want to know what the eye is up to, do I? The password is-”

“Password,” Jon finished. “Wow. That’s  _ really  _ insecure, you know that?”

“If you could just Know the password,” said Mike, “Why bother asking? And I know, Simon set it up and he was  _ literally  _ born in the 1600s.”

“I don’t know how I knew it,” said Jon. 

“Might wanna get that checked out, Archivist,” said Mike as he left the room.

Jon began to look for the cheapest gasoline he could.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tws: Police violence  
> Ok so I'm trying to get this done SO fast, and I'm almost done. After this I'm stuck between writing found family Julia and Trevor, my Ophelia fix it story, evil gays, my Ophelia but she's a ghost story, my Horatio goes evil and summons a ghost story, or brothers grimm fairytale rewrites. Thoughts?


	34. An Assembly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Daisy comes to some conclusions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a direct fuck you to anybody that thinks Basira owns the braincell

“With Jon and Tim out of the archives, what are  _ we  _ supposed to do?”

“Relax,” said Martin. “Daisy and Basira said they were going to try to find him.”

“Yeah,” said Melanie, “But he’s going to do something stupid and antagonize Daisy, I can feel it.”

Martin looked at her. 

“In my bones,” she said. “Ghost bones.”

“You’re in a much better mood than normal,” said Martin. 

She chucked. “I’m getting therapy. Anger is-” she put on a posh accent- “A  _ real  _ problem you need to address, in order to gain control of all your emotions.”

“Well, whoever your therapist is, they seem like they know what they’re doing.”

“Oh, not you too,” said Melanie. 

“What?”

“Everyone’s so intent on telling me that I’m ‘making a good decision,’ that ‘this will help me in the long term.’” She did air quotes. “I’m pissed.”

“It is a good decision,” said Martin, “And for what it’s worth, I hope it ends up helping you. You deserve to be happy.”

Melanie looked at him. “Really?” 

“Yeah. I hope you find a way out of the archives and find a way to be happy, and- I dunno- have a nice life with a nice girl where you don’t have to worry about this.”

“You- you care?” asked Melanie. 

“Of course I do.” Martin scoffed. “Got no bloody choice  _ but  _ to care, about everyone and everything and how everyone in the archives is doing with their life.”

“Sarcasm,” Melanie said, “But you care about me. How I’m doing. Not how well I can fit into whatever plan the others are attempting next.”

“Of course I care about you, Melanie. Of course I care, because we’re all stumbling along in the dark, and it would be nice- nice to see you happy. Nice for you to  _ be  _ happy, even if I  _ don’t _ see it.”

“Same for you,” said Melanie. “You're in the same boat as me. They just want to stick you in a plan so long as you act put together.”

“Yeah, but I don’t really mind.”

“You don’t-” Melanie gaped. “How can you  _ not mind _ ?”

Martin shrugged. “This job pays the bills, I get to be useful, and I’m helping them. In the long run, what else matters?”

“You!”

Martin shook his head. “Hey, taking care of them is something to do.”

“Martin, you’re going to bury yourself under the weight of everybody else's problems, and then die horribly and alone.”

Martin furrowed his eyebrows and looked up at Melanie. “Thanks…?”

“Not a compliment. Alright, you’re officially my new best friend, let’s go get some ice cream.”

“..What?”

Melanie rolled her eyes. “I lost all my friends when the video of me went viral and my therapist says I should ‘connect with others more,’ or some shit like that, so come on. You’re my friend now, officially, and we’re going to blow off the schedules Elias has set for us because he’s not going to fire us.”

“Why me?”

“If I was in the same room as Jon, Tim, or Daisy, there’s a 95 percent chance that I would stab them because I can’t stand anybody else that works here, so you’re it. Now, come on.”

Martin stood up. “Hey- How’s the bullet?”

“Hurts like a bitch.”

\---

“Daisy? Daisy, what did they do to you?”

Daisy stood up to face Basira, rubbing her head. “Fucker has some sort of… vertigo control. I tried to shoot him and he sent me falling.”

“Holy shit. Why was Jon with him?”

“Don’t know,” said Daisy. “But now you have to admit I was right.”

“What?”

“Jon’s dangerous.”

“Jon…”

“Think about it, Basira,” Daisy said. “He has some weird powers that make people tell him things, he repeatedly goes on trips that end up with him fraternizing with monsters, and hes also one of the only remaining suspects for murder. I don’t think he’s human anymore, if he ever was.”

Basira let out a deep breath. “Why was he helping, then? Why was he doing good?”

“He wasn’t, it’s as simple as that. He knew he needed to gain our trust, and his weird going-into-minds powers only made it easier for us to end up trusting him. The truth is that he’s been working with Elias this whole time.”

“Why didn’t you get pulled into trusting him, then? If he has… powers?” Basira asked.

Daisy fidgeted with the gun strapped to her waist and looked down. “I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe I was just too stubborn to get pulled in. And,” she admitted, “I almost did. When I found out about Gertrude’s tapes, I immediately wanted to blame Elias, because he was pushing around in my mind, and Jon seemed concerned. Genuinely concerned.”

“But it wasn’t genuine.”

“No. Because he was only worried Elias would blow their facade. He’s managed to convince everybody in the building that he’s not a monster, and we have to be the ones to stop him.”

“You got this all from a run in with a vertigo man?” Basira asked, clearly skeptical. 

“I’ve been working on it for a while,” said Daisy. “How he was able to gain your trust so quickly, why he seemed to know things about me and make me give him information. All the puzzle pieces fall into place, and it’s obvious we found him someplace he didn’t want to be found.” Daisy gritted her teeth. “And why else would he run?”

“We need to play along,” said Basira. “Need to make sure he doesn’t know that we’re onto him. Wait,” she said. “How do we know he doesn’t have the same powers of clairvoyance that Elias  does.”

…

“Shit!”

“It’s okay, It’s okay,” said Basira. Even if he does, he wouldn’t want to reveal them to us now. And Elias can’t make you answer things, right? So it’s a safe assumption that Jon can’t see  everywhere, either.”

“The archives,” said Daisy.

“What?”

“The thing, you know-” she made a vague gesture with her hands.

Basira squeezed her eyes shut. “Right. That.”

“What do we do? Should we even, you know, do it?”

“I think so,” said Basira. It was Tim’s idea, so I think it’ll have the intended effect. The hard part is going to be making sure that Jon doesn’t sabotage the plan before we get to it.”

“If Jon knows, so does Elias.”

“Then this has to be inevitable.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tws:depression, police being police, disregard for self care  
> HELLO MY AMERICANS HOW ARE WE FEELING


	35. A long way home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They formulate a plan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello guys I finished drafting this story all I have to do now is look it over and do my rewrites of certain areas!

If the boat ride to visit Manuela was lonely, the boat ride back was even worse, especially when coupled with the dread that came along with returning. Once or twice he thought he saw a ship pass him in the darkness, silent, massive, and shrouded in fog, dwarfing the boat he was in. Once or twice, he thought to call for Sasha, to ask how the sun was doing, just to talk, even if it was different. He never did.

Of course, she still showed up on her own. 

“Helen thinks the sun is a wonderful decoration to keep on the mantelpiece.”

Tim kicked a nearby crate. “So glad it’s been useful.”

“I just wanted to let you know that it hasn’t been a burden or anything to keep her sun-”

“I  _ know.” _

Conversations like these, they hurt. More than any other kind of conversation he could have with the thing that stole Sasha from him, because this was a mirror of the conversations that he used to have before Sasha changed. 

She was always so concerned about being a burden, about making a burden, no matter how many times Tim told her friendship was tit for tat, he made a sacrifice, and she made one when he needed it. So it hurt to see the old Sasha shining through the caricature. 

He thought about Manuela more than once, too. The darkness. The unseen, her wretched sun, and the way that she was pale, a shell, different than before.

He didn’t want to leave the boat. He didn’t want to leave the unseen in favor of the archives. 

But he had a job to do. 

\---

Jon was dreading going back to the Archives. With Daisy there, and the chase still fresh in his mind, he couldn’t stop his hands from shaking as he gripped the pole on the subway. It was fine. Martin would be there, so at least one person wouldn’t hate him. 

Jon ran through the numbers in his head. Melanie hated him, but Melanie hated most everyone in the archives. Daisy and Basira only cared for each other, but Daisy was a loose cannon waiting to blow. Tim was angry and sad no matter what, and seemed to hate Jon in particular. Martin was… He shouldn’t have been so unkind when he tenured as Archivist. The only person that still cared for him, and he didn’t deserve it. 

His stop. He gathered his things, and stepped off the tram into the biting cold air, pulling his jacket closer to wrap around him and the tape recorder in his pocket. 

He saw a woman glance at him, and wrinkle her nose, thinking he was another homeless person riding the subway endlessly, attempting to gain some semblance of warmth. He looked at her, and she recoiled. 

He shouldn’t have taken so much pleasure in that. 

He shouldn’t have stepped through the offered door on the side of the building when it appeared. 

But he did, and it was warm, and that was comfort for a second. 

There was a figure sitting on the couch waiting for him, trying to look human. And failing. 

“Sasha,” he said. He felt numb inside. 

“I wanted to talk to you after the unknowing,” she said. “and later, before you met with Crew, but you were always with somebody and I never got a chance.”

He glanced at the door, still there if he wanted to take it. “I have to get to work,” he said. 

“Not for another fifteen minutes. And this will only take as long as you want it to.”

He looked around, and sat opposite Sasha on the couch. “What is it?”

“I wanted to see a friend.”

“Are we friends?”

She sighed. “I wish. We’re something, though, because you have the memories of Jonathan Sims, the archivist, and I have the memories of Sasha James, the archival assistant. That means we can't choose to be strangers.”

“You’ve left a door for me. That means you’re giving me a choice of whether or not to talk.”

“I gave you that choice when I let you turn the handle yourself.”

“It’s different when you leave the door there for me.”

Sasha nodded. “So we can be friends?”

“Yes.” Then Jon smiled. “We sound like primary school children, ‘do you want to be friends with me?’”

Sasha laughed. “It never hurts to be sure.”

“And you wanted to talk to me again.”

“Yes. You always know how to make it serious again, don't you?” asked Sasha. 

“I’m afraid so. And Sasha? Feel free to stop by the archives anytime you want.”

“Yeah.” Sasha looked down. “Jon?”

“Yes?”

“Would Martin want to see me? I mean, I never knew him as well as you did, and I… I haven’t seen him yet.”

“I didn’t- I don’t know him that well. Not better than anybody else here? At least, I don’t think? But yes, I think he’d be… receptive to… you.”

“Thanks.”

Jon stepped back out of Sasha, and into the archives. He winced, expecting to see the entire archival team, Daisy and Baira included, but when he looked up there was… nobody. 

They were in the tunnels, then. He made to go down into the trapdoor, when there was a sound from the door to the archives. Jon turned around, cautiously trying to see and not be seen at the same time. It was Elias. 

“Hello, Jon.”

Jon gripped the door frame, desperately trying not to let his thoughts stray to fire and the archives. “Hello Elias.”

“Any idea where the rest of your team is?”

_ Think about Melanie, Daisy, Basira, Micheal Crew, no, don’t think of Crew, think about Martin. Think about the beetles and the way that he doesn’t hate you, and how smart he is whenever we need to- no, don’t think about that, think about Sasha, and Tim, and where are they- _

“No idea,” Jon lied. 

Elias fixed him with a piercing stare. 

_ Jane Prentiss, the worms, Martin who was trapped in his apartment for weeks on end, and who I barely gave any thought to, and now he’s the one- no, don’t think about that, think about Sasha and how she fell through the door, and Rosie and where was Tim, and where is Tim- _

“Well then,” said Elias. “Let me know what you find out.”

_ Think about murder, and Elias, and how much you hate him, think about how silly you were to accuse Martin of murder, think about- _

Elias walked up the stairs, and Jon breathed a sigh of relief. He walked down the trapdoor to explain the gasoline he’d bought. 

“Tim, you’re back.”

“What?” Tim spread his arms. “Surprised to see me? Thought I would have died?”

“How did Manuela go?”

“Tried to kill me, same old, same old. Had a lovely discussion with her, and took her sun away.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah. Turns out I’m not that incompetent after all.”

“I’m sorry, Tim.”

“Save it.”

Melanie popped a loud bubble with her gum. “Fire?” she asked.

“Right,” said Jon. “When Crew took me with him, I ended up in Simon Fairchild’s house, I think you;ve read some statements about him?” There was silence. “Okay. Well, he said his house was shielded from the eye, so I ordered as much gasoline as I could without my card being declined.”

“Shoulda used Daisy’s card,” said Melanie. “Bet it wouldn’t have been declined for buying copious amounts of flammable materials.”

Daisy and Basira exchanged a glance. 

“Anyway,” Jon said, “The problem is really going to be finding a way to get them down to the archives without Elias noticing. So that means we need a distraction while the rest of us desperately 

haul the cans down the tunnels.” He looked around. 

“I’ll do it,” said Martin, while at the same time, Tim said,

“I think Jon should be the distraction.”

“Think about it,” he forged onwards. “We know Jon’s weedy and probably couldn’t carry the gasoline fast enough. Martin played distraction last time, and nobody should have to do that twice, although I admire your bravery.” He shot a glance at Martin. “Truly admirable, the way you consistently sacrifice yourself for Jon despite the way he hates you.”

“I don’t-”

“Shut up.”

“I don’t hate you, Martin,” Jon said quietly. 

“I know.”

Tim wrinkled his nose.”Great, Mr. paranoid monster over here has feelings. Anyway Jon, Elias is most interested in you, and I think if Martin plays the distraction again, Elias won’t even give him a second look, just check to see what’s suspicious in the institute. Jon on the other hand, you have a good reason to talk to him. You just need to give him a good reason to pull into your mind, get him angry at you.”

“I don’t think Jon should do it,” said Daisy. 

“Why not?”

Daisy floundered. “I just- I don’t think he’s interested enough in you.” 

“Alright,” said Tim. “So we set up a second distraction, in case the first isn’t enough.”

Jon nodded. “But I don’t think Daisy should be a distraction. She’s going to be the best at getting the gasoline down to the tunnels.”

“Fine, I will,” said Basira.

“What are you going to do?” asked Melanie. “All Jon has to do is get angry and ask questions. We know he has spooky powers too, so he can probably reach into Elias’s mind for some extra flavor.” Jon sighed, but didn’t comment. “But Basira, you’re going to need to do something that’s not overly suspicious but still causes a disruption.”

“And fire’s off the table,” said Martin, “Since I already used it once.”

‘Wait,” said Melanie. “I’m the angry one. He won’t suspect me if I start slicing up statements.”

“I have an idea,” said Basira. “I’ve always wanted to experiment with some of the stuff in artifact storage.”

“Absolutely not,” said Sasha, stepping out of a door that hadn’t been there a second ago. “It could kill you, it could bring about worse things than the problems you have now, I will not let you in if  you try.”

”Fine then. Help me.”

“Fine. Tell me what I have to do.”

“I don’t know!” said Basira. “You must have some idea of what would get Elias away from us.”

“Call me when you think of something,” said Sasha, and she shut the door.

“Dammit!” said Basira. “When does the gasoline arrive?”

“Two days,” said Jon. “So that’s when we have to be ready to go.”

“I can deal with that,” said Melanie.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw: Elias being elias  
> Hey guys, there is some heavy stuff coming up in later chapters so a) tell me if I'm ever disrespectful and I will change it, and b) this is my emotional trauma story, I don't write happy things. be aware.


	36. A setup

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jared Hopworth shows up...

Jon burst into the room, disrupting the discussion about the recently failed flesh ritual. 

“It’s here.”

Melanie jumped up. “The gasoline?”

“Yes,” said Jon. “Basira, did you get anything planned out with Helen and Sasha?”

Basira smiled. “Oh yeah, we have some stuff planned out.”

“Great. I’m going to-” he took a deep breath- “go.” He walked out of the room as if in a trance, and up the stairs.

Basira waited until he was well and truly gone, and then looked at Daisy. “This has to be good enough to stop both of them from going down to catch us. This has to be good enough to bring both Jon and Elias to it.”

“Will it be?”

Basira breathed sharply inwards. “I really, really hope so.”

Daisy went as if to leave, then turned back. “Can you tell me what you’re doing?”

“No,” said Basira. “Not completely. But Helen was able to locate Jared hopworth.”

Daisy gaped. “Jared- Oh, no.”

“Oh,  _ yes.” _

\---

Jon had absolutely no idea what his plan to distract Elias was, truth be told. He was going to ask questions. Use compulsion, reach into Elias’s mind until he had no choice but to look away from the main lobby. 

What he didn’t expect was to see Elias running past him at breakneck speed before he was even able to burst into the office, grabbing his arm in panic. 

“Come on,” hissed Elias. “I don’t care what you have to say to me, you can say it if we end up alive after this.”

“Where…?”

“Save your silly questions, and follow me!” Elias was sprinting, faster than a man his age should have been able to, but Jon supposed it was because of the beholding. Or perhaps Elias was simply incredibly intent on his destination. 

And that destination became clear when the two arrived in the second floor hallway, and heard banging, crashing, and muttering. All from artifact storage.

“This way,” said Elias, grabbing Jon and pulling. Jon stumbled, and barely managed to catch himself while they ran. Elias flung the door to artifact storage open, and before them stood the most gruesome and terrifying semblance of a man Jon had ever seen. 

Now perhaps that wasn’t true, because Jon had seen the chorus of skin, Jane Prentiss, and the thing that had been Rosie. But this was the most human.  _ Too  _ human, a gigantic mass of flesh and  bone, all sticking out the wrong way, all the faces dissolved screaming, and all the humanity removed. 

“Jared Hopworth,” Jon breathed, but that small sentence was enough to alert the creature to their presence.

Elias glared at Jon, but Jon only looked upwards, awestruck at the creare before him. 

Jared picked up a vase, and hurled it against the wall. Elias doubled over in pain, retching, and that’s when Jon knew that whatever it took to burn down the archives, he would do it, because it  _ would  _ work. 

A door. 

Two faces peering out, watching the show. Jon turned to look at them.”Can you take him?” Jon asked the couple, nudging Elias with his foot. Helen frowned down at Elias. 

“No,” she said. “Somehow I think having him in there would be an awful decision.”

“It’s life or death!”

“Only for you.”

Jon groaned, and faced the monster made of flesh in front of him. “Jared Hopworth,” he said, trying to sound imperious. Based on laughter, it wasn’t a good enough semblance of control.   


“Why are you here?” he asked, trying to compel. 

Jared growled. “I was told that there were bodies to take here, and a temple to destroy.” He raised a fist at Jon, but the fist didn’t collide with Jon’s shoulder. Instead it ripped Jon’s very meat apart and sent him tumbling backwards, into a broken table and a shelf of teeth. “That was a warning,” said Jared. “Because nobody wants to be compelled.”

“Listen,” said Jon, talking fast, and thinking slightly less fast, “There’s a body right here you can have, and it’s a way to destroy a temple.” He pushed Elias in front of him. “Only the finest bone structure for you, Jared.”

Elias went pale in terror. 

Jared frowned. “What?”

“You can have him. Dissolve him, whatever. I don’t care.”

“We have to get him out of the archives, Jon!” cried Elias. “Get. him. out. of. here.”

Jon turned. “Why? Because you care about preserving them? I don’t care if these artifacts get destroyed, let him continue.”

“I didn’t take you for a masochist,” said Elias.

“What?”

“Tim’s style was killing himself. You seem much more focused on self preservation.”

Jon blinked. “Are you saying that… when Jared destroys the archives, it hurts me too?”

“Haven’t you noticed?” Elias grinned. “If it’s not hurting you now, just  _ wait.”  _

“Shut up!” Jon took a deep breath. “Fine. What do we do to get him out of the archives?”

“We could lure him into the tunnels,” said Elias.

“No.”

“What, you use them too much to plot against me?”

“We don’t- I don’t- what- how?”

“Oh,” said Elias. “Give it up. You’ve figured out that I can’t see down there, at least partially, so I know there’s something going on.” He gritted his teeth. “Melanie’s all buddy- buddy with you, which means it’s something she agrees with.”

“But you don’t know what it is.”

“No,” said Elias, “But I’ll pull it out of you after we deal with Jared.”

Jon locked eyes with Elias, causing them both to still in their efforts against Jared. “Try,” he said.

And Elias screamed.

There is something about going through a mind that is set up, that is infested in the exact same way yours is that is incredibly painful. There is something about looking into a mind that is asking, and daring you, and begging you to complete a battle of the soul. It is much like a walkie talkie, when it is too close to another one, that makes it glitch and yell and scream and warble. 

Because Jon fell to the floor screaming as well. 

It was a blur after that. A door, no, two doors. Jared being herded through, a splash and then silence. A woman too much and made of fractals shaking his arm and glitching down at him, and then leaving. A face swimming at him, covered in scars and sweat and… worry? No. Not worry, vindictiveness.

“Jon,” said Basira. 

“Basira? What happened?”

“Why ask me? I was busy,” she said. 

“Oh! The-” 

She clamped a hand over his mouth. “Shut up.”

Jon looked around the room again, bracing himself with his hands, and saw Elias, eyes closed and face palid on the floor. “Is he dead?” Jon asked. 

“I wish,” said Basira, “But no. We die if he dies, unless…”

“Unless,” Jon agreed. 

“Tunnels,” said Basira. “Now.”

“What about Elias?”

“What about him? He’ll wake up. Eventually. Or,” she said, “He’s in a coma, and he’ll never wake up, and that would be bloody wonderful.”

“Right… right. Tunnels?”

“I’ll explain it when we get down there.”

\---

Tim felt like he was on drugs again. He’d tried smoking pot once, in high school, and he’d been so jumpy and on edge for the entire day that he’d vowed that was something he’d never do again. And here he was, with all of his limbs shaking, and no way to stop it, looking around because any second he’d be dead, or found out, or  _ something. _

“Jon’s here,” called Basira, and Tim saw Jon fall roughly through the trapdoor. 

“What happened?” asked Martin. 

Tim shot him a glare. “Who cares what happened to  _ Jon _ ? He should be asking what happened to  _ us.” _

“It’s hard to distract Elias,” said Martin. “Compared to that, what happened to us was  _ nothing. _ ”

“I beg to differ,” said Tim. 

“What happened?”

Daisy glared at Jon. “While you and Elias were dealing with Jared, completely protected by Helen, I may add, there was more than just gasoline delivered.”

“What?”

“Yeah,” said Tim. “Remember that coffin? The one from Joshua Gilespie?”

“That was delivered?”

“Yes,” growled Daisy. “Wanna tell us what you know about it?”

“I don’t know anything,” said Jon. “It just said the gasoline was being delivered today.” He looked around. “Where is that?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” said Daisy.

“Different places,” said Tim. “We kept them all around the areas so they’re easy to access.”

Jon took a deep breath. “The coffin… Where is it?”

“I’m keeping it as a coffee table in the breakroom,” said Melanie.

“And the key?”

“Put it in the freezer. Learning from Josh.”

Jon looked at her. “Does the scratching and moaning not bother you?”

“I’ve heard worse.”

“Right,” said Jon. “Right. Better not put this off.”

“Tomorrow,” said Daisy. “It’s here, it’s in place, we have a plan, why not tomorrow?”

“We aren’t ready-”

“Yes we are,” said Basira. “We have everything planned, and sitting on it for another week or two won’t help us at all. So tomorrow. All in favor?”

Daisy raised her hand. Basira raised her hand. Tim raised his hand. Melanie raised her hand. 

Jon looked at Martin, who looked apologetically back at Jon, and slowly raised his hand.

“Great,” said Daisy. “So tomorrow, we get to set this whole place aflame.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tws: body horror, drug mention, daisy typical being rude.


	37. A last wish

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shit goes down really, really fast.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How are you doing? Because certainly nobody in this story is doing well.

Elias woke up on the floor in artifact storage, with a pounding headache akin to a hangover, except for the fact that he hadn’t gone drinking since the 1800s.

And then it all came rushing back to him in a moment. Jared Hopworth. Jon. The mind loop. 

Oh.

_ Oh.  _

He had to go to the tunnels,  _ now.  _

Grabbing his gun from his office, along with a tape recorder and his suit coat, he ran down to the archives, through the door, and into the main room.

\---

Deadly silent, Tim was handing out the cans of gasoline. Two for each person, because the entire library didn’t need to be burned to the ground. Only the archives. A lighter for each. Jon held out his own, the metallic web pattern glinting in the flicker of light as he held it up in explanation. 

The timing had to be perfect. They had to finish their task before Elias was able to intervene. 

\---

From a side room in the archives, Elias heard the pitter-patter of feet, the sloshing of liquid, and his heart caught in his throat. 

Red cans of gasoline as Melanie turned the corner. Red blood running through her veins, red blood on her hands, and the red glint in her eyes as they widened in terror.

“Elias,” she said, then louder. “Elias!”

“What?” said Tim, emerging with his cans, and went stock still at the sight. 

‘You’re crazy,” Elias said, his lips curling into a smile. “Did you honestly think your fate would be better than the late Archivist?”

Daisy whipped her head in the direction of Jon. “I knew it,” she said. “I knew you were always working with him!”

“No- No, I don’t know how he knew, I don’t - I-”

“Save it,” Daisy’s eyes narrowed. “I’ll rip both your throats out.”

She crouched, and jumped at him. Jon closed his eyes, preparing for the last painful moments of his life. 

Bang. 

And her eyes went wide as she clutched at her chest. 

“I’ll kill you,” she choked out. “Elias, you are a  _ dead  _ man.”

Bang. 

And her eye was out, blood and gore streaming from the hole on her face. 

“How does it feel,” said Elias, “To die while being  _ so  _ horribly wrong?”

Bang.

A final gasp as the sightless, heartless woman fell to the floor of the archives, her face nigh but a semblance of the strength that had shone on it once. 

“Daisy?” Basira cradled Daisy in her arms, oblivious to the blood pooling on the floor, and her pink shirt, now stained with a much darker crimson. 

“It hurts to lose a partner, doesn’t it,” said Elias. “Of course, I wouldn’t know. But I can imagine. She played a part in a much bigger game, and she’s absolutely unnecessary now. And you-” He raised the gun- “Are the only one that ever cared about that monster.”

A hole in her upper arm, and she fell back with a cry of pain, into the blood and gasoline. 

“And Martin,” said Elias. “You’re always doing the grunt work. Doesn’t that make you bitter?”

“No,” said Martin, and held Elias’s gaze. “Nobody understands that it doesn’t matter where I am when things go down, so long as they happen. The world isn’t centered around me.”

“I’m sure that’s something your mother told you many times.”

“Shut up.”

“If it doesn’t matter where you are-” Elias glanced around the archives, and his eyes found the coffin, leaning against the wall, and opened it. 

Martin looked at the open coffin. He looked at Jon and Tim, with eyes wide and mouths open. Then he walked into the abyss as Elias slammed the door shut. 

“No,” said Melanie. “No, this is  _ not  _ going to be useless. I refuse to make my actions useless.” And with that, she spilled the gasoline on the floor of the archives, and set it alight.

Elias, though old, was deft enough to jump out of the way as the wall of fire stood between them. But he had a shotgun. And Melanie only had a knife. 

A shot rang out through the wall, and she gasped, and clutched her leg in pain. 

“Maybe you needed a reminder,” he said, “That we don’t burn books. And that your actions are still useless.  _ Worse  _ than useless, because all this accomplished was killing your hunter.”

Melanie and Tim stood on one side of the wall of flames, their faces flickering in and out as they watched the fire burn. 

Jon and Elias stood on the other side. Jon looked up at Elias with terror, with pleading, with pain. 

Elias emptied the cartridge into Jon’s chest. 

Then he turned his attention to the fire in front of him as the CO2 sprayed from the ceiling. 

“It was always useless, Melanie,” he said. “But I know something about you. You’d do almost anything to quit working here, and you still have an incorporeal bullet stuck in one of your legs.”

“And?” she asked, gritting her teeth through the pain of fire and gore.

“And the only way to stop serving one power is to form a stronger bond with another. Do the math, Melanie, and tell me what you need to do.”

Tim stood up, eyes streaked with dark black tears of soot. “I can finish this job,” he said. 

“Yes,” said Elias. “Or you can get Jon, Basira, and Melanie to a hospital. I think Jon might be going to the morgue with Daisy, though.”

Tim glared, and called 999.

When the ambulance arrived, there were three barely conscious people to be sent to the hospital. One among the dead. One criminal, for you can’t argue the validity of the claims when you’re still holding the empty gun. 

And one miraculously unharmed man, who insisted on staying in the archives.

Tim couldn’t bear seeing one more face of a barely living friend. 

So when Sasha appeared, and asked to assist with the cleanup, the cuts on his fist were a testament to his grief, and sent her sprawling back into her door. 

He didn’t know when she’d come back to bother him, and he didn't particularly care. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tws:elias mind stuff, guns, fire, body horror  
> My good people, my new fixation is steampunk and I have spent far too much money on this stuff. I'm working an extra hour today I think, so I'll probably stop by micheals becuase I found some gears and I... really want them.


	38. A new manager

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I hate Peter Lukas but ngl he's funny sometimes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess who had to rewrite the ending due to the new episode? Me.

Peter hated being at the institute. But he was never one to pass up a good wager, especially one against Elias, so here he was running the place that served as the very antithesis to his own power. He considered briefly telling Elias that it counted more as a favor than as a wager, but he was honestly looking forward to tormenting one of Elias’s pet playthings. 

Martin was his first choice, from what he’d seen in his previous visit, and he was sure Elias had sent Martin to the buried specifically to annoy him. But the joke was on Elias, because murdering another institute employee was an excellent way to make all of the assistants susceptible to the lonely. 

When Peter arrived at Elias’s beck and call to take control as the new head of the institute, the sea breeze behind him a stark contrast to the acrid scent of the burning institute, there was only one man left in the archives, mopping up gasoline and absentmindedly flicking a lighter up towards his palms as he watched the flames dance. 

“Yes,” thought Peter, “This is a perfect candidate.”

\---

“Hello, Tim!” Peter said in his best customer service voice. Really, the only voice he had was a customer service voice, since he made a habit of not talking to anybody unless he absolutely had to. 

“Would you like to be my assistant?” He asked. “With Elias gone, I could use some help running the institute.”

Tim glanced up. “Fuck off,” he said. 

Peter frowned. “Well that’s not a good way to treat your new boss.”

“Oh? Are you going to fire me?”

Peter sighed. A perfect candidate, if he could pull the stick out of his ass long enough to be cooperative. “It would mainly be paperwork,” he said. “You wouldn’t have to deal with this  _ mess  _ constantly, and there’s a significant pay raise.”

“All for the low, low price of my soul,” said Tim.

“You hate Jon,” Peter said. “You hate Melanie. Martin’s gone, presumably dead, since nobody comes out of the buried alive. Basira hates you at this point and is utterly  _ broken,  _ and I can answer  your questions.” He paused. “And there’s a pay rise!”

“Right,” said Tim. “You keep mentioning that.”

“Also, there’s an apocalypse to stop.”

Tim sighed. “How much is the pay rise?”

Peter handed him a credit card. 

“Ri-ght,” said Tim. 

“Great!” said Peter. “I’ll show you to your new office!”

\---

Basira was in shock. Or maybe she wasn’t and this was how she grieved. Or maybe she was dreaming and none of this was real. It felt like a dream, as she watched Daisy’s charred remains get  shoved into the body bag and wheeled to the morgue. It felt like a dream as she sat silent by Melanie’s hospital bed, watching the machines beep. 

Melanie would be out in two days. Tim didn’t even have to go to the hospital. But Jon... Jon had taken thirteen bullets to the chest at point blank range, and he was still alive. In a coma, scarred, but yet alive. Basira didn’t want to know what that meant about his mortality. 

And Martin. Martin. There was no body for them to bury, but he wasn’t coming back from the dirt. 

Basira vaguely felt sad, thinking about how much Martin was the rope that held the archives together. 

What was going to happen, she wondered as she drifted off, without him there?

“Basira?”

Basira jerked awake with a start, staring at the red-rimmed eyes of Melanie. “Melanie?”

“Yeah. Does Georgie know what’s happened?”

Basira picked up her phone, which barely had any battery power left. “I don’t think so,” she said. “Do you want me to call her?”

“Yes please,” said Melanie. “But don’t… just don’t freak her out, all right? She doesn’t want to get involved in the archives.”

Basira nodded her assent, and began to dial the number. After three rings, Georgie picked up. 

“Hello?”

“This is Basira.” Basira could almost hear Georgie massaging her forehead.

“Alright, I want you not to freak out-”

“What is it?”

“Melanie’s in the hospital. And Jon. And me.”

“What?”

“Elias.”

“What?”

“He kind of went on a crazy murder spree. And shot me. And Melanie. And Jon. Also he pushed Martin into a coffin which is… not ideal.”

“Hold up,” said Georgie. “So all of you are in the hospital, and you just thought to call me now?”

“In my defense, we are all in the hospital, and on a huge amount of painkillers.”

“Alright,” said Georgie. “Are you all okay?”

“I am,” she said. “And Melanie is.”

“Jon?”

“Elias shot him thirteen times to the chest.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah.” Basira let out a breath. “He’s in a coma right now, which is a miracle in and of itself, but I don’t- well, I don’t think he’ll live.”

“And Daisy?”

Basira sighed shakily. 

“Alright, I’m guessing… not great?”

“She’s dead.”

“Are you sure, I mean-”

“I watched her die. G-d, I  _ held  _ her as she died. I’m sure.”

“I would pray for you if I was religious.”

Basira let out a sharp bark of a laugh, borne not of mirth but of pain. “Yeah. It’s not good.”

Georgie paused. “Do you want me to come in? Do anything for you guys?”

“No-” said Basira, but Melanie made grabby hands for the phone. “Actually, yes, I’m going to hand you over to Melanie now.”

“Can you bring some food in? Hospital food is shit, so I don’t even care if you bring in that weird hungarian stuff you like. Also, I have a book on the coffee table, and I’m pretty sure I left my phone with you before we torched the archives.”

“Anything else?”

Melanie paused. “I don’t really care about Tim, but you care about people for some inexplicable reason, so he could probably use a pick me up. Some food or a hug.”

“Got it,” said Georgie. “Hey, do you think Jon’s gonna be alright?”

“Honestly?” said Melanie, “No. People don’t recover from _ one  _ shot in their lungs. I think right now we’re just waiting for him to die completely.”

“Good not to have false hope.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tws:death  
> So this is fun! I'm excited to listen to the rest of TMA at this point.


	39. An assistant to the new head of the institute

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tim makes some colossally bad decisions, and also tea crimes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm still reeling over the fact that the distortion was just wearing a face. Reeling. Like yeah, I keep mentioning that in this, but listen, it's SO different. Arggggg. Of course, I still love Helen in all her manipulative gaslighting glory, so RIP, I guess. She was funny. But also, validated in the fact that she was never good or helping them, we love one unapologetically evil gal who was technically just the skin of a fear power.

Honestly. The pay raise was barely enough to cover all of the work Tim was doing now, since every time Tim deigned to leave the small cubicle Peter passed off as an office, Peter somehow magically appeared in front of him with a new task, “if it wasn’t too much trouble.”

It was, but Tim would rather not say it. He had a feeling refusing wouldn’t go so well for him anyway, so better not to even try. He’d started taking lunch inside his cubicle, in order to avoid running into Peter. He’d brought a mini microwave and placed it underneath his desk, so he didn’t even have to go to the breakroom to heat up his tea, which was  _ much  _ more efficient than Martin’s kettle. 

Martin. 

Dead, wasn't he? Tim had seen him walk into the coffin and from that, there was no way out. And Jon wasn’t going to live either. Tim had no idea why he was working with Peter, other than to hurt himself in some twisted way.

Hey, what else was there to do? Every day he came into work, Peter would give him some new cryptic bullshit to read about, something else about a new power on the come up. Tim had gleaned a vague amount from the statements, but Peter had promised him answers when Tim had started working for him. Instead, all he got were statements. But maybe he could quit. Maybe he could figure something out. Maybe this wasn’t all in vain, so Tim kept working, researching, and doing whatever Peter asked, because  _ maybe,  _ just  _ maybe  _ it could all mean something in the end.

Spite is a wonderful motivator. 

\---

Basira stood over Jon, holding a knife. His chest was bloodied and his eyes were closed, but it didn’t look peaceful. No, he looked dead, the only sign of life being the brain scans, spiking up and down as he slept. 

The knife quivered as Basira held it over his forehead. 

It would be easy. It would be done. She’d go to jail, and if the bullets weren’t enough to kill him, who in their right mind would think that a knife would do anything? 

With a sigh, she tucked the switchblade back into her pocket, and walked out the door. 

“Helen,” she said. “I need help.”

“Not planning on killing the archivist, are you? Sasha would be terribly upset, so I’m afraid I can’t help you with that one.”

Basira scoffed. “No guarantee he’d stay dead anyway,” she said. 

Helen nodded. “Killing people  _ is  _ tricky, isn’t it. Sometimes they just don’t die, and that creates an awful lot of work for everyone involved.”

“Daisy,” said Basira. 

“Yes,” said Helen. “She, unfortunately,  _ is  _ dead as a doornail. Or fortunately, depending on how you look at it.” Helen paused. “What do you plan to do now? I could still get Jared Hopworth on the phone, if you’re interested.”

“No thanks,” Basira said. “If you could give me the address of one Michael Crew?”

“What for?”

“He’s a liar and a cheat, and Daisy wanted him dead.”

“So you’re going to kill him yourself.”

“Yes.”

“Good luck!” said Helen. “You don’t mind if I pull up a door and watch, do you? This will be very interesting.”

“I don’t care,” said Basira, “so long as you take me to him and all of the rest of the people I need to pay a visit to.”

\---

Jon was dreaming of a tree. The further he climbed up the gigantic trunk, the closer he got to understanding his situation. 

He couldn’t feel his breath, or his heartbeat, and when he checked, they weren’t even there. All that mattered was the tree and the answers. 

As he climbed, the branches got thinner, so he was not walking on a path of wood, but rather balancing on a tightrope. He walked. He walked, and walked and walked for hours, getting minutely  closer to the answers as he passed the things living in the tree, all fearful of the man with too many eyes and too little understanding. 

The squirrels ran from him, carrying their acorns into hidey holes to gossip and spread the word of the invader. The dead people hanging from the tree swayed in the breeze, towards him, and away from him, their rotting heads nodding at his decision, giving him their blessing. 

Green boots was hanging from the tree, the final marker of Mount everest. Odin was hanging from the tree, serene and winking with his single eye as always. Sasha was strung up as well, her body split symmetrically in two, grinning at him with jagged stoneline teeth as she stared blankly at him.

Martin was hanging, the frames of his glasses cracked and cutting his cheeks up as he started blankly at Jon. 

Daisy bared her teeth at him, then crumbled to dust. 

He kept walking up and down and over and around, measuring every inch of the wooden prison as he walked. He didn’t sleep, he didn’t eat, he didn’t stop, because all he needed to do was get to the top of the damned tree.

\---

Martin was choking on dirt. He hadn’t wanted to walk into the darkness of the coffin, but there was no choice. And for the first few days, it was peaceful. It was a cave, his fingertips barely reaching from wall to wall as he walked, hearing quiet moans and unsettling scratching. It didn’t bother him, for it was far better than the fire in the archives, the pain and the death. 

In some ways it was a relief that he wasn’t the caretaker. Nobody can blame you if you're stuck in the earth, right? If something wasn’t done right, it wasn’t his fault. He couldn’t be held accountable when he couldn’t move. As the water inside the tunnels rose higher, choking him out and forcing him to hold his breath for longer than he thought possible, it was almost relief. 

Almost.

Because the earthworms wriggled against his skin, bringing him to panic that sent him breathing too hard and too fast when he shouldn’t have been breathing at all. For every second of relief, of his loss of responsibility, there were hours of painful torture as the water rose and fell, crushing his lungs and cutting his skin. 

It was dark, and he wondered if he still had eyes. Some fish have lived in caves for long enough that they did not need them, and Martin wondered if under the soil and mud, he would eventually  find a place within the dirt. 

That was even more terrifying than his current predicament. 

He was rotting from the inside out, because the dirt pushed on him, pushed  _ in  _ him, and he couldn’t move or breath as he felt the wet dirt against his decaying shoes. 

Maybe he could lose hope. 

\---

Melanie was angry. She had done it. She had burnt the archives, she had finished something and taken down the world, and it had, as usual, been rendered utterly useless when she got shot in the leg. That was becoming some sort of a sick theme for her, a bullet in the leg to take away all of the things she’d worked for. 

And Daisy was dead, and Melanie didn’t  _ care,  _ because Daisy was a bloodthirsty bitch that didn’t deserve to live. 

She felt bad for Basira, because it hurt. It would have hurt if it was Georgie. But Daisy didn’t deserve to live, and neither did Melanie, and neither did Jon. 

They all made do with what they were given, she guessed. 

But Melanie had a different job to do now, becuase fuck being an archival assistant. She was going to be a guardian, because nobody was going to hurt her friends again.

Friends was such a loaded word. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tws: buried, suicidal thoughts, homicidal thoughts.
> 
> Are we having fun? Are we?


	40. A mistake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Basira's in deep trouble.

Basira held her gun as she crept up the Fairchilds lawn. They would have alarms, right? Maybe not, if they were actually from the 1600s, but even then, there was plenty of time to learn about the wonders of silent alarms. 

Okay, Basira, she thought. Okay. Breathe. 

Daisy wanted Mike dead, and he had hurt Daisy, so Basira wanted him dead just as much. 

Quid pro quo, an eye for an eye, whatever silly proverb you wanted to use, the meaning was the same. Daisy did things for her, she was going to fulfill Daisy’s dying wishes. And she knew that  these  _ were  _ Daisy’s final wishes, even if she hadn’t said it because she  _ knew  _ Daisy. 

Enough to kill a man for a dead woman. 

Funnily enough, despite Basira’s misgivings, the Fairchilds did not have any alarms set up on the property. Which was worse, because she had no idea if they knew she was there.

Focus. In, kill the man, out, and run before she could be found. 

It wasn’t going to be hard, right? He was just an near immortal servant of an evil fear god that for some reason, Jon wanted to keep alive. 

And was Jon working with Elias, really? Or was Daisy wrong?

No, Daisy wasn’t wrong. She was a better judge of character than that, so Elias must have a reason to pump Jon’s chest full of lead.

She had to fit the pieces together. No, right now she needed to get into the house, kill a man, and bury him.

It wasn’t very hard to find Michael Crew. He was sitting on an extravagant sofa, reading the kind of book that made Basira partially believe that he  _ had  _ been friends with Jon in college. He didn't notice her as she watched him from behind, staring at the man who didn’t look particularly malevolent, absentmindedly turning pages.

She cocked her gun, and watched him as he was so fucking  _ human  _ in that moment, raking a hand through his hair and furrowing his eyebrows. 

She raised the gun as he adjusted his position on the couch and turned a page on the book. He didn’t look like a fear avatar. He looked like a man at peace with his surroundings, the only care in the world he had being the book before him.

She shot him through the back of the head. 

He stilled on the couch, and she heard the dripping of blood on the book he had been reading. It slipped out of his hands, the thud seeming louder than the bullet. 

She jumped up from her place in the doorway and grabbed his body as it slipped forwards off the couch. Blood and gore leaked out of his forehead, and he stared up at her with wide, dead eyes. He hadn’t even seen who had it in for him. 

We laugh about blood trails, but when a person has no accomplice, and a mission stronger than steel, they end up dragging a bloodied body though the house, not caring what it leaves behind. 

With a grunt, she shoved the body in the back of her car. For all her silence, her DNA was scattered all over the house, so if the Fairchilds cared enough to report him missing, she was fucked. 

Life was only so long, right? And she had a lot to do for Daisy before she died. After all, like Daisy had said the night before she died, they should stage the attack the very next day. 

Basira sighed. No use thinking about that. Hands gripping nearly white on the steering wheel, she drove to Daisy’s place in the forest. She wasn’t supposed to know where Daisy took her victims, but- No. Not her victims. Her targets. 

Daisy had always treated Basira like a vulnerable child, not showing her where the kill spot was, trying to protect her from the world. Well, Daisy was  _ dead  _ now, and Basira was looking at the bones, inhuman things that gnarled and stuck out every which way where the rain had pooled and unearthed the bodies.

A ghastly sight, but maybe Daisy had reveled in the blood. 

It was  _ Basira’s  _ space in the forest now. 

She dumped Micheal Crew, his body already graying, on the damp forest floor. She’d have to dig him a hole, wouldn’t she. She sighed. No point if the Fairchilds didn’t report the crime, and if nobody had noticed the makeshift graveyard while hiking, a dead man wasn’t much more. 

Maybe she just didn’t care what happened to her next. 

She washed her hands.

\---

Jon was still climbing the tree. He was away from the decaying, hanging bodies now, which was a welcome relief, but was it any better than what taunted him? Massive animals, massive worlds, all of them reflections of the world he thought he knew. 

Leering at him from the treetops, knowing he was simply another one of them, a larvae that hadn’t yet passed the growing stage. Powerless. 

For a while, he supposed, he could be what they thought he was, but at the same time, after he emerged from the cocoon, he would be something new. 

The branches were thinning. He didn’t know what he’d do when he reached the top, or if there even was a top, or if he would slip fatally and have to start the laborious journey all over again.

Worms were crawling out of the woodwork. Faces with too many eys and too many limbs were crawling out of the holes peppering the tree. He was climbing up, using them as grips. 

Jon was nothing if not damned stubborn. 

\---

It was cold, it was silent, it was too bright for Tim’s eyes as he sat in the main foyer listening to Simon Fairchild talk. 

He rubbed his forehead. He had a massive headache, one that had recently appeared, right after Simon had entered his line of vision. Tim didn’t think that was a coincidence. Peter had said that  _ he  _ would answer Tim’s questions, but no, instead he had sent the most hyper, oldest man Tim had ever seen to answer- or more accurately, deflect- the questions Tim had.

“- Somebody broke into my house last Wednesday. Terrible tragedy, killed my assistant and dragged him all the way through the house before finally shoving him in their car. Of course, that’s just what I know, so if I end up slightly out of it today, it’s because I can’t even call a cleaner for this amount of blood. Too likely to ask questions. I would have Mike clean it up but, you know…” Simon waved his hand vaguely through the air. “He’s dead.”

“Wait,” said Tim, looking up. “Somebody broke into your house, murdered your…” Tim paused. “And then dragged the body all the way through the house and you don’t know who it was?”

“They were gone by the time I noticed. Of course I don’t know who it was!”

“DNA scans showed nothing?”

“What are you talking about?”

“You know, when the police look at the crime scene to figure out who did it by looking at the DNA left on the scene if the murderer was clumsy.”

“What’s the DNA?”

Tim sighed. “You know what, have you called the police yet? “

“Of course not! What if they think I’m the murderer?”

“They probably will think that, actually,” said Tim. “It wasn’t anybody here.”

Simon frowned. “I haven’t called in my favor that the archivist owes me yet. Would you be willing to do it for me?”

“Absolutely not,” said Tim, clicking the tape recorder off. 

“What if I owe you a favor afterwards?”

“Still no.”

“What if I threaten to drop you off a building?”

Tim groaned, and pulled at his hair. “What even is this favor?”

“Figure out who killed Mike.”

“No,” said Tim. “But we have a private investigator that works in the archives. She’ll probably take your case.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tws: police corruption, murder


	41. A Guardian

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Melanie gets in trouble. Again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm gonna go buy a fancy old umbrella today im so excited

Since the failed attempt at burning down the archives, there had been four new major attacks on the archives, and who knew how many other attacks that only counted as minor nuisances. If the archives weren't going to do anything good, she was sure as hell going to stop the other bad things. Tim was caught up in something evil. Martin was gone. Daisy was gone, Jon should be gone. Basira was strangely cagey whenever Melanie tried to strike up a conversation. The two literal monsters were the only people she could trust in the institute, and wasn’t that an encouraging thought?

Melanie had taken it upon herself to guard the archives, and to figure out what Elias was playing at. Her Monday routine was to visit Elias, and then head to the archives to kill the things coming  after everybody else. 

She didn’t remember a time that her fingernails weren’t caked in blood. 

“Elias.”

“Melanie!” He beamed. “Back again? I thought there was something to kill in the archives.”

“No, there’s something to kill  _ here.” _

“What exactly, do you think you’ll pull out of me that you haven’t already gotten?”

“How do I quit the institute?”

“You really think I’ll tell you?”

“No,” said Melanie “I think that one of these days, you’ll slip up.”

“It really is never a good idea,” said Elias. “To play poker with somebody that counts cards.”

“What?” she scoffed. “You think you’re a genius? Was it part of your master plan to get locked up? You treat everyone as if you’re miles above them!”

“Only because I am, Guardian.” said Elias. “It’s only wrong to boast if you’re incorrect.”

“And that-” Melanie threw up her hands- “is your fatal flaw. You  _ know  _ things, Elias. That’s it. Otherwise, you’re a slightly immortal asshole who thinks he’s better than everyone else. You’re not the  _ web,  _ Elias. You’re not a magical manipulator, you’re not Annabelle Cane.” She caught his surprised look. “Yeah, I’ve been reading statements. You know what the theme is? You see things. You don’t understand them, and then you’re surprised when people get one over you.” She jabbed a finger at his chest. “Someday, I’ll take a melon baller to your eyes, and then you won’t  _ ever  _ be able to see, only pretend.”

“Good luck,” he called after her. “You’re going to need it.”

“Always have to have the last word, don’t you?” she shot back.

“I suppose.”

“Fuck off.”

Talking to Elias annoyed Melanie. Always had, always would. But it was satisfying, like scratching an itch, because as unconcerned he pretended to be, he was just as annoyed as she was. The only difference was her annoyance and anger filled her up, and all it did was unbalance him. 

Walking into the archives, she slumped into one of the office chairs, spinning it around. Save for the ever present stench of blood that permeated every inch of the archives, there was no sign of anything to do. And she wasn’t going to get down on her knees and scrub the nooks and crannies for the umpteeth time. 

She kicked the coffin. She’d never fucking liked Marin, with his stammering and insistence on everyone being okay, all the  _ fucking  _ time. Timid,  _ friendly,  _ pretending to care about everyone under the sun. She kicked the coffin again. Why couldn’t she have died along with him? Would have been better than  _ this.  _

“Sasha!”

“I’m not a puppet you can call on whenever you need to talk, you know.”

“So far, you do just fine at that, though,” said Melanie. “Perfect little loyal monster, there when everyone needs you, ready to help out, somehow a  _ good  _ person despite the things that have happened to you.  _ poor  _ Sasha,  _ innocent  _ Sasha, Sasha that  _ shouldn’t  _ have died when she did, you should hear the way they talk about you.”

Sasha’s mouth morphed into a thin, hard set line. Melanie forged onwards.

‘You know, you don’t have to be there for everybody, all the time. But no. Even in death,  _ perfect  _ Sasha can’t do anything but be a good little girl, playing the right games, being there for everyone, all the time, always comforting, always the g-ddamn helper.” Melanie threw her arms wide and stalked up to Sasha, chin upturned to stare into her eyes. “If you’re so powerful, why don’t you  _ do  _ something. Pull Jon out so he can continue being the dickbag he is! Get Martin out of the coffin, or get rid of it! You have all this power, Sasha, and you use it so that people see you as wonderful as you want to be! Why don’t you stop pretending, why don’t you stop being the perfect fucking little princess! Why don’t you-”

Sasha curled her hands around Melanie's throat, fingers slicing like knives.

“You think I’m perfect?” laughed Sasha. “You think I’m  _ good,  _ or  _ kind,  _ or even bare minimum,  _ helpful?”  _ Sasha lifted Melanie and leered at her. “You don’t provoke a monster unless you want to get burned. And,” she continued, “You think I’m here for  _ you?  _ You think I’m trying to help anyone, that I have a plan, that I’m not evil, that I don’t consume the fear of others? You think I won’t hurt you because the  _ beholding  _ likes you?”

Melanie choked on her own blood, still angry, still fighting. “No,” said Sasha. “Short sighted little monster, trying to measure power with the eye of delusion. Always trying to pick a fucking fight that you won’t win, what did you hope to achieve?”

Sasha dropped Melanie, and the world dissolved into spirals as Sasha’s body twisted up, down around, inside out. “I think I’ll leave you here,” she said. “I think you need some time to reflect, and I  _ also  _ think that you’re a nuisance best avoided.”

\---

Tim didn’t remember the last time he’d gone home. Tim didn’t remember the last time he’d talked to anybody. 

Sasha was giving him the space he’d asked for. Granted, he hadn’t asked for it nicely and he probably didn’t  _ really  _ need it the way he thought he did, but she respected those boundaries. No matter how self destructive they were. 

Actually, Tim  _ did  _ remember the last time he’d had a conversation. Peter. Peter had handed him a file about the extinction, and told him to review it. Tim had smiled weakly, and Peter had raised an eyebrow, telling him that wearing sunglasses inside was terribly unfashionable. Tim had just cast his eyes downward, pretending that he was thoroughly chastised. 

The truth was that it hurt to read without the glasses to provide a cool, muted darkness that washed away the neon eyes he saw covering the institute. Tim had his ways, and Peter had his own ways of dealing with the stench the institute gave off, wrapping himself in fog and disappearing from view.

Tim knew how to wrap the fog around himself like a coat, but it wasn’t comforting the way Peter thought. It was just  _ cold.  _ Protective, surrounding, muting, but cold. Cold like an icicle shattering at your feet. Cold like the wind  _ biting  _ you. Tim hated the cold. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tws elias mind shit, suicidal thots/self harm, spirally shit.
> 
> How's it going, our area is about to close down again because cases have been rising.


	42. A spiteful, melting, woman.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Basira...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me? Writing my religious trauma into fanfiction? It's more likely than you think.

Basira didn’t  _ like  _ killing people. But it was getting  _ so  _ much easier. She looked at her makeshift list, reading through the names written in blue ink. 

Jude perry. 

Jared Hopworth.

NotRosie.

Manuela Dominguez. 

Breekon and Hope.

Arthur Nolan.

Simon Fairchild. 

Oliver banks. 

Peter Lukas. 

Annabelle Cane. 

And finally, unwritten, unsaid, but a name on the list all the same, Helen and Sasha, the living distortion. 

Nobody that gave themselves over to the fear deserved to live, and Basira was going to make sure they all died awful, painful,  _ terrible  _ deaths. That was the only regret she had when killing Michael Crew, he didn’t deserve the merciful death of a bullet in the head. Her next victim would burn alive, feeling the pain of everybody they’d hurt or watched die. Well, after she finished off the woman immune to fire.

Jude Perry. 

Basira licked her already dry lips. She wasn’t an idiot, she knew that what she was doing was dangerous. 

It was always dangerous to go up against an avatar, and she knew clear as day that the only reason she’d been able to beat Crew was by the element of surprise. Micheal was killed because she  was angry and needed someone to take it out on. Jude- Jude would die in a cold blooded murder, looking at the face of the person who killed her. 

“Helen,” she called. 

Within a moment, the door appeared for her use. “Sasha doesn’t like what you’re doing,” said Helen.

Basira’s heart sunk like a stone. 

“What,” she said, “So I don’t get any help with this? I’m going to do it no matter how much you help me.”

“No,” said Helen. “Sasha’s fine with me helping you. She doesn’t  _ own  _ me. But if she thinks what you’re doing is a bad idea, well then, I think she’s right, and I wanted to warn you before you got yourself killed. Or worse.” 

“I can handle myself,” said Basira. 

Helen didn’t comment. “Where are we taking you today?”

“Jude Perry,” said Basira. “I have a list of places she might be, and I need to go to each one  _ fast.” _ She stared at Helen. “That means I don’t want to be trapped here for days like last time.”

“Seconds,” said Helen. “But I suppose on your end it must have felt much longer. Tell me, are you planning a murder or a suicide?”

Basira glared. “This isn’t some excuse to get myself killed, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“That’s exactly what I’m thinking,” said Helen, “And if you come out of this alive, you can explain to me why I’m wrong.” And with that, Helen held the door open to reveal a musty church.

Basira took a deep breath. This was going to be just like Michael Crew. In, a bullet in the head, and back out again, dragging a body. 

Whenever churches are referenced in popular culture, it’s always a majestic chapel, filled with stained glass and altars and baby Jesus's rejoicing. Dark oak wood with sacrament, spires that wind their way up and up, ending in points sharp enough to impale a man. Tablecloths white as snow, and perfect, picturesque organs all playing a haunted, ghostly tune. 

In reality of course, the only churches that compare to the vision are those that belong in wealthy catholic neighborhoods. 

As Basira snuck through the church, lights hummed and buzzed as she walked, turning on in motion with her steps. Purple carpets and chairs were stained with spit up, as if the leaders had tried for a majestic look, but had just come out with grape syrup soiling the halls. The keys of the pianos were browned and yellowed, the upper coating coming off to reveal mold leeching its way through the keys, showing off to the world that the piano had never been made of ivory. And worse of all, the faint stench of sulfur hung in the air like a cloud, penetrating every inch of the rundown building. 

There were too many hallways, as there always are in churches like this. You could walk in circles for hours, and still not find the person you’re looking for, as you push pass overexcited toddlers desperate to leave the uncomfortable prison that calls itself worship. 

There was humming from the chapel. 

A chapel is not grand in buildings like these. A room with a chandelier hanging from the ceiling, looking as if it is ready to crack and fall onto the pastors head at every turn. And in the case of this church, there was a woman, with her back turned to Basira, gleefully lighting the makeshift pyre behind Basira. 

It was so easy. Jude didn’t see her, still humming a tune of “ring around the rosie.” Basira had her gun cocked and loaded, holding it in her good hand. 

With a straight, unwavering arm, Basira held her gun and fired five shots into Jude’s head and back.

Her aim was perfect. Almost suspiciously perfect, with four shots symmetrical on her back, and one that had found its way into the cranium. Basira admired her work, and waited for the other woman to fall to the ground like Crew had. 

Jude turned around. “Well,” she said, “If it isn’t a new little baby hunter, all ready to take over for the other nuisance of the Magnus institute.” And all while keeping steady eye contact with Basira, she reached into her own skull, melting like wax, and pulled out the bullet. “There,” she continued, “Now that’s out of me. I really don’t know what happens if a bullet stays inside, but I’d rather not find out. I want my wax to stay clean.” She smiled, and with her thumb and index finger, crushed the bullet and let it drop onto the floor with a nearly silent  _ ping!  _

Basira stood and watched. “But-” she said “I shot you!”

“You did indeed, and I’m glad you let me know you were there, before I got the pyre all set up. It’s terribly annoying to deal with an intruder after the fires have been lit.”

“What- you mean-”

“Not a ritual.” said Jude. “Just something  _ fun  _ to do, feed a terrified innocent person to the flames while we all watch.”She looked strangely at Basira, and stalked towards her. “How do you think  you’d burn?” 

Basira stumbled backwards, the terror evident in her eyes as Jude pounded towards her. She ran backwards, with Jude walking at a leisurely, unhurried pace, until she hit the back of the church wall, Jude smiling up at her. 

Basira held her gun up, but Jude simply took hold of the muzzle and squeezed, the gun rendering itself useless as a charred piece of metal on the floor. 

“You really thought you could kill me, didn’t you,” said Jude. She grabbed Basiras arm, making her cry out in pain, but Jude continued to drag her towards the altar. 

When Jude finally released Basira, and thrust her towards the altar, picking up rope from the floor, Basira could do nothing but clutch at her arm, burnt to the bone. Jude grinned, and grabbed both of Basira’s wrists this time, expertly tying her tight to the pyre, while Basira bit and thrashed and kicked at air. 

Jude stood back to admire her handiwork. “Now,” she said. “We should check to see if a  _ hunter  _ keeps anything dangerous on her.”

“No,” said Basira.” “No, I can call for the eye, I can- wait. HELE-” she screamed, before Jude stuck a burning hot fist in her mouth. Then, Basira was screaming for a different reason. 

“Should have known,” growled Jude, “That you’d try to involve someone else in this.” WIthout a word, she stuffed a gag in Basira’s mouth, taping it in tightly. “There. Now you won’t have any friends to call on, and we can begin the prelude before the  _ real  _ show.”

Jude pressed her palm on Basiras cheek as muffled screams permeated the air. 

\---

The air was wet and thick, and every so often Martin heard another lost soul wandering in the darkness. “Foolish ones,” he thought. “Moving only makes it hurt worse in this place.”

Martin had lost track of time, although time doesn’t matter when you’re being eaten alive. The swelling wet darkness and choke of earth had long since ripped his shoes from his feet, knowing that every slimy cold thing that brushed against the soles would send a new stab of terror through him. He thought he was done with the fear, but no. Every whistling, ever swell of earth rising up to consume him was a new kind of hurt. The light above him, disappearing just after he was accustomed to it was not hope. The pounding footsteps of another following down the coffin was not company for his misery. It was dread, pure and simple. Someday, someday he would see real light. 

\---

Jon was slipping down the tree, down, down, down away from the branches as they oozed out slime, intent on making sure he couldn’t reach his goal. 

No. He was not going to fail, he was  _ not,  _ because Martin was still alive, and pulling for help, because Tim was still alive, hurting because of  _ him,  _ Basira was still alive, with blood matted hair and vengeance because of  _ his  _ actions, Melanie was still alive, trying her best, and he couldn’t leave them there, even if they hated him in the end. 

His chest swelled. He had gotten used to the empty, hollow cavity encased in lead that defined his midsection. He knew what had happened to him, and he knew that he was less than human. His heart was riddled with holes, and the blood pumping everywhere in him was full of mercury. 

The doctor would have removed the bullets, he knew logically, and his hair was shorn and shaven, because you cannot keep it through a coma. 

A dream world relied on dream logic, and in his logic his eyes and his heart were glowing green, and his hands plunged into the tree like their own kind of scalpel. The tree bled sap, and he didn’t bleed anymore.

He kept climbing.

Revelation would be at the top.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tws: burning, religion, claustrophobia. 
> 
> guys this is unrelated to anything but idk if I've recommended the podcast bedtime stories from hell yet. Anyway, It's my favorite podcast as of now, and I highly reccomend you listen it has made me cry.


	43. A funeral pyre

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Helen is not a Nice Person.

Basira was terrified, pained, gagged and bound to a pyre doused in gasoline. But after three hours of screaming herself hoarse, listening to Jude laugh and gloat, and resigning herself to her fate, she knew that the only way to truly frustrate the cultists was by not showing  _ any  _ fear.

So she stood, stony faced, staring as the congregation filed into the chapel, preparing to bite her tongue off and not give them the satisfaction of her screams. 

“Hello!” yelled Jude over the crackling of flames. “I’m glad you’ve all made it here  _ safely.  _ As you see, I’ve prepared a different nice sacrifice today. 

A member of the congregation raised their hand. “What did you do with the other one?”

Jude smirked. “I took him in the alley out back and burned him alive.”

There was a chorus of boos.

“What?” Jude rolled her eyes. “You think I should have saved him for one of you? I set this thing up, I get the leftovers.”

“We’d be okay with that,” said Arthur Nolan from the second row, “If you hadn’t already roasted today's sacrifice nearly to a crisp.” He looked at Basira. “Is there anything left to burn?”

“Oh  _ honestly,  _ Nolan. You think I should peel off every bit of burnt skin before we proceed? It’s only the top layer.”

“Those look like more than first-degree burns.” 

“Fine.” Jude bit her lip. “She was mouthy, and deserved it. She’ll burn just fine though, if you could shut your trap.”

“She reeks of beholding and hunt,” said Arthur. “Is it really wise to piss off the other powers when we ourselves are so weak?”

“Maybe you’re weak, Arthur,” spat Jude, “But she’s not a servant anymore than her dead friends. Nobody is going to care when she dies.”

Arthur sat down. “Good,” said Jude. “If there aren’t any more complaints, I’m going to light her now.”

Another person stood up from the back row. “Yes,” they said. “I think we all want to know why you get to start the fire when you’ve already burnt her,  _ and  _ the last sacrifice we prepared.”

“Fine!” Jude yelled, throwing up her hands in surrender. “Who else wants to come up here and light it? So long as we get this done in a timely manner, it really doesn’t bother me who  _ starts  _ the fire.”

Arthur spoke. “Come on Jude,” he said. “We all know it matters to  _ you. _ ”

“You want to light her, then? Come on up here, Arthur, let’s see if you have gall for it.”

Arthur conceded. “All right,” he said. “But don’t be surprised when I do a much better job than you.” He looked at Basira, and then looked back at Jude. “Did you already douse her in gasoline? I would’ve thought you stronger than that.”

“Humans have a fear of gasoline,” said Jude. “Much more than the actual fire, it’s nice to see them squirm.”

Basira grunted through her gag, and with difficulty, managed to spit it out. “So the gasoline was entirely unnecessary?” she asked. 

Jude spared her a glance. “Yeah,” she said. “I can light things on fire just by touching them, you think I needed gasoline?”

Basira sighed. Then, taking a deep breath and making sure nobody could reach her in time, she screamed “Helen!”

The effect was instantaneous. A door appeared in the back of the chapel, and Jude set the pyre alight. Basira screamed. She’d been burning at Jude’s hands for three hours, but that was concentrated, not her entire nervous system revolting against the flames at once. 

Maybe Jude said that the gasoline was unnecessary for someone like her, but it caught quickly, engulfing Basira’s legs, and licking up her waist, consuming her,  _ eating  _ her. The ropes were buring to shreds as she did, but she wasn’t strong enough to escape the flames as she fell on her knees, allowing it to sting and destroy her face as it felt her fear and reveled in it. 

Inhumanly long legs strode to the stand, walking past- past or through?- Jude. A hand reached through the flames, big as her torso, and picked Basira up by the waist. 

“This is the last time,” said Helen, “That I help you out of a mess you made.” Still grumbling, Helen picked up the flaming Basira, and walked towards her door, all while chastising her and being chased by cultists. Then, Helen slammed the door, manifested a water fountain, and roughly dunked Basira in three times. 

Basira cried out in pain as she was pulled out, the burns stinging ever more as the relief washed over her. “You’re stupid,” said Helen. 

“Oh, fuck you.”

Helen hummed. “I’m not coming to your rescue anymore. Don’t treat me like a glorified attack dog.”

“That’s not-” Basira pushed herself up from the floor with difficulty- “What I was doing!”

Helen stared down at Basira. “Is that so? Because I seem to remember you telling me you’d be fine, trying to call my name, and getting horribly burned by the person you’d tried to kill, finally getting bound to what would have been your funeral pyre, and that’s when  _ I  _ came to your rescue.”

Basira only registered one part of the sentence. “You mean you were watching the entire time!”

“Of course,” said Helen. “There’s only so much to do when you don’t have to upkeep a regular job, and you  _ are  _ interesting to watch.”

“So you could have saved me anytime?”

“Oh. I probably could have.”

Basira sputtered in outrage. “Why didn’t you?”

“Boring.”

“You mean- you mean you let me get burnt by Jude  _ fucking  _ Perry for three hours before you intervened, simply because you thought it was  _ boring  _ to stop her?”

“Yes,” said Helen. “I don’t really care about you. But my, I wouldn’t want your suicide revenge mission to end so early. Try and be more careful next time, will you?”

Basira pushed herself away from Helen. “You’re mad if you think I’m using your  _ door  _ again, after this conversation!”

“Really doesn’t matter to me,” said Helen. “I’ll still be watching.”

Basira hmphed. “Let me out of here, Helen.”

“There’s always a door.” Helen grinned. “If you look for it.”

\---

Melanie wasn’t having much fun. The Sasha she had known got angry, sure, but not like this. Not the kind of anger that would leave another person, no matter how upset, to rot in a hell of her own making. 

Days? Weeks? No, Melanie was pretty sure she’d only been in here for a matter of minutes. But then again, as the Sasha in the portraits on the wall was quick to remind her, time didn’t work in here. 

Worst of all, Melanie was thrown into her own personal hell, so she knew Sasha was still watching. “Feeding on me,” thought Melanie, her heart sinking in her chest. “She’s really feeding on me.”

Melanie stabbed every painting as she came across it. There was not an apple left unsliced, no piece of Sasha or Helen’s face that wasn’t cut into fractals when she was done with it. 

Melanie smashed every chair she came across, throwing them against the walls with an inhuman strength that only appeared when her anger flared. 

Melanie wasn’t satisfied by her rage. It didn’t help her, merely took the rest of the feelings and replaced them with one, hurting Sasha, hurting Helen, and then leaving her a self-destructive mess. 

Melanie had never been a crier, and she wasn’t one now, so when she came across another familiar face in the hallway, twisted and distorted by burns, she didn’t think twice. A knife was out, and the creature was laying on the ground in their own blood. 

“...Basira?”

“Damn, Melanie!”

Melanie dropped her knife with a dull thunk. “Why are you here? Why are you burned up? What happened?”

“Take a breath!” said Basira. “Helen. And Jude. Why are you here?”

“Sasha.”

“She dropped you here?”

“No shit!”

“Why?”

Melanie flipped Basira off. “Okay, Okay,” said Basira. “You don’t wanna talk about it.”

“How do we get out of here?” asked Melanie.

“Your guess is as good as mine.”

“Well,” said Melanie, frowning, “You’ve been in here before so you at least know the layout of this place.”

Basira almost laughed. “Layout? What makes you think there’s one of those?”

“Well, what do we do?”

“Best as I can tell, we wander until they give us a door.”

“ So we’re waiting on the hospitality of monsters!”

“Yeah,” said Basira. “Best hope you didn’t piss them off too badly.”

Melanie fidgeted and looked down.

“What did you do?” asked Basira. 

“Nothing,” said Melanie, holding her head high again. 

“ _ Melanie.” _

“Ask me again and I’ll cut your fingers off.”

Basira sighed, but assented, and the two continued the walk, occasionally pointing out the false doors and windows that they couldn’t escape out of.

“Hey,” said Melanie eventually, “Do you think they mean to let us out at all?”

The color drained from Basira’s face. “Of course,” she said, voice wavering. “Helen said she was waiting to see what I did next.”

“Sasha said she was going to leave me in there until she got bored. So I wouldn’t place a bet that they mean to let me out. Only you.”

“Well, either both of us are getting out, or neither of us.”

“Neither, then?” said Helen, popping up behind them, and making Melanie jump.

“Helen,” Basira growled. “Let us out of here.”

“Well then,” she said, “If you insist!”

They were thrown through a door that left them clinging to the top of a skyscraper, the rain pounding down on them. 

“Where did you put us?”

Helen frowned. “You don’t like it? Well then, I supposed you can go somewhere else.” Another door engulfed the two, and sent them stumbling into the ocean, where Melanie made the mistake of trying to breath, her eyes bugging out in terror as the water entered her lungs. 

Helen laughed. “Perhaps you’d like to meet the dear boneturner that I caught so willingly.” Again and again, Melanie and Basira were thrown through doors, barely a chance to respond to what they were being forced to weather, until Melanie gasped for air, and desperately yelled. 

“Helen!” Melanie glared with all the anger she could muster. “Let us out.”

“Please,” Basira added. 

“We won’t annoy you anymore,” said Melanie. “Just let us go.”

“You didn’t annoy me,” said Helen. You were just  _ there.  _ But yes, I’ll let you out.”

They were back in the archives, gasping, panting, sobbing for breath, and the nightmare was over. For now. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tws: spiral, manipulation, fire, arguments. 
> 
> I wrote a story but it's not really fanfiction so idk where to put it, I want to do something with it.


	44. A Commission

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Basira gets a client.

Basira wasn’t having a good day, having barely escaped the door, with third degree burns covering her face, and no way to explain them to the hospital. She was treating them with water and neosporin in the breakroom. 

Melanie had left to go grab… she didn’t know. Who else was there besides her, Basira, and Tim? But he was useless, languishing alone in Peter Lukas’s office. Basira was burnt to a crisp, Melanie was too angry to be of use, and there wasn’t even a new head archivist. 

Which was fine. 

Basira was no good at taking orders from anybody, but it  _ hurt,  _ to have so many desks empty and so many things undone. 

With a sigh, she walked into Jon’s office, and sat down at the desk. She pulled out a random statement, and there was a tape recorder in front of there. Huh, that hadn’t been there before. “Statement of Jude Perry, regarding-” She snapped her mouth shut. No. No, she wasn’t going to do this, and whatever the tapes wanted her to know, it wasn’t good. She was done with Jude for now. 

For now. 

She shoved the statement in her bag, and left the office. 

\----

Melanie hadn’t been able to protect the one person left to protect, the  _ one  _ person. There was one person left in the archives that was unharmed, and she was now covered head to toe in long, angry, red scars. 

Melanie’s fault. 

A man walked down into the archives. Well, walked might be the wrong word. Floated? Fell? Appeared. Whatever it was, he ended up in the archives somehow, facing Melanie, and blocking her view. 

“Hello!” he said. “Are you perhaps, the private investigator that Timothy mentioned?”

“Tim talked to you?” Melanie asked. Then: “Who are you?”

“Simon Fairchild,” he said “I was told somebody could help me solve a case.”

“Yeah,” said Melanie. “That would be Basira. What case do you need solved?”

“Murder.”

“Whoa, dude,” said Melanie. “That’s something that you should probably take to the police.”

“He’s not legally alive anymore,” said Simon. “So it’s quite hard to report it without questioning.”

“How long has he been dead for?”

Simon thought. “A week or two, give or take a couple of days.”

“Seriously? And you didn’t call anyone before this? Is there any DNA, dude?”

Simon threw his hands in the air. “Why does everybody care so much about this DNA stuff?”

“It’s how you track down a murderer!”

“It is?” 

“Yeah, dude,” said Melanie. She sat down with a plop on the floor. “Do you not know what DNA tracing is?”

“DNA… Tracing?”

Melanie sighed. “What did you do with the blood all over the floor?”

He stared at her, confused. “I mopped it up.”

Melanie slapped her forehead. “ _ No.  _ You don’t do that. The police can look at the crime scene and tell you who it was by checking fingerprints and like, hair pieces that were left by the attacker.”

“I replaced the couch.” He motioned. “The one he died on.”

“So really, Basira’s your last hope.” Melanie sighed. “Basira!”

Basira appeared in the doorway. “What is it?”

“This clown-” Simon opened his mouth to protest, but was cut off by Melanie- “has a murder case, but he doesn’t know how anything works, and so it’s taken him a week to find anyone to solve it. Also the person that died was already legally dead, so it’s not like he can take it to the police.”

“Basira?” Simon held out his hand, which Basira did not take. “I heard you were the detective that did supernatural cases.”

“Private Investigator, “ said Basira. “I suppose. Who is it?”

“Michael Crew.”

Basira stuttered, and went still. “Michael Crew?”

“Ah good,” said Simon. “I see you’ve heard of him.”

“Yeah, no,” said Basira. “I’m not taking the case.”

“You don’t have a choice,” he said. “You take my case for an extraordinarily large sum of money, or I toss you off a building. Your call.”

“No- I can’t- No!”

“The building, then?”

“No! I mean-” Basira took a deep breath. “I don’t think I’m the right person to take a murder case to.”

“Who should I take it to?”

Basira had no response. 

“Wonderful,” said Simon. “I’ll give you five hundred up front, and another thousand when the case is solved.”

Basira nodded mutley, and Simon walked back up the stairs, out of the archives. 

Basira watched him retreat, then looked down at the money in her hands. “I can’t take this job,” she said. 

“Why not?” asked Melanie. “It’s good money, and if you don’t catch who did it, you can just frame another monster.”

“I- the murder-” She grabbed Melanie’s wrist, and dragged the other woman towards the trapdoor. As soon as it was shut, and the feeling of being watched receded, she turned on her torch. 

“It was me.”

“What?”

“The murderer. It was me.”

“G-d,  _ Basira.  _ Why- just,  _ why _ ?”

Basira let out a breath she hadn’t even known she was holding in. “Daisy wanted him dead.”

Melanie laughed, half angry, and half just  _ stressed.  _ “What, so you did it? Some fucked up sense of closure, so you killed a man?”

“Not a man,” said Basira. “He was like Simon. A- He didn’t deserve to live.”

“Who does. Who  _ does,  _ nowadays, Basira?” She looked up. “Can you frame Elias?”

Basira shook her head. “He was already in jail by the time I killed Mike.”

Melanie kicked a rock towards Basira. “Fuck, you really didn’t think this through.”

“No,” said Basira. “I guess I didn’t.” She looked up suddenly. “You know, I was going to kill Jon. In the hospital bed, because nobody- nobody human- survives thirteen bullets to the chest, but I didn’t think my dagger would have done it.”

“They would have caught you, anyway.”

“Yeah, I guess they would have.” The two of them lulled into a comfortable silence, thinking, or perhaps only pretending, to think about what to do next.

“Peter,” said Melanie, snapping her fingers. “He’s a creep, he was appointed by Elias, and he has connections to Simon that you could screw up. He could have killed Mike.”

“Nobody would believe that.”

“A dude from the 1600s who doesn’t know how DNA works would,” said Melanie.

Basira’s face hardened into a firm-set scowl. “I suppose he wouldn't,” she said. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No big tws for this chapter, but here's a psa:  
> If you order online, wash whatever you've ordered. I don't know how to explain that we are touching your items and if you are ordering cookware, someone is handling it. It's not that hard to clean it off before cooking with it.


	45. A battle of wits

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tim is sad.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Very short chapter today. This is because I have to work eleven hours tomorrow. (Black friday yay!!!!)

Tim had never been the smartest one in the family, as Elias had been quick to point out. Tim had never been the  _ Danny  _ of the family, and he’d never been destined for great things, but there was one thing he was  _ very  _ good at. 

He had a big heart. Something his parent’s said to make him feel better after a bad test score, something Sasha told him when he made jokes, quick to take her mind of her troubles, even Jon said it, albeit in a scornful and derogatory way. It’s what had got him to press the button during the unknowing, what had got him to sacrifice his well being for Peter Lukas. It’s what had sent him up to Elias’s office with a hatchet, determined to find the memory of a lost friend.

Tim was very good at self sacrifice. 

A flaw or a strength, who could say? He was willing- able-  _ ready  _ to drive himself into the ground at the whims of anybody and everybody that he cared about. 

Sasha showed up daily to converse with him. Helen showed up too, albeit less often. She had less to say to him, and he wasn’t happy hearing from either of the two women. It hurt. It hurt to talk to somebody that looked like a friend, it hurt that she was unapologetic about the people she killed, it hurt that the one person he knew would always care about him was so close, but so far away. 

Tim wiled away his days reading statements, each one taking more out of him than the last. Each day learning merely a sentence, or a fragment of the big picture. Talking with Simon had done nothing more than upset him and give him a headache, and the information gleaned wasn’t worth the vertigo he felt at the man's presence.

He didn’t usually talk to Peter. On the rare occasions that Peter  _ did  _ show up he was vague, gave Tim little new information, and was overall, utterly useless. Which left Tim alone to stop another apocalypse, save all his friends, and learn what was going on. Not so different than the rest of his entire life. 

“Tim.”

Sasha again. Tim threw a paperclip at her. “Go away.”

“You’re fading,” 

Tim looked down. He was, in fact, engulfed in fog from the waist down, making him look like the most pissed off ghost to ever have existed. “I wish I was all the way gone.” He rolled his eyes. “Then I wouldn’t have to see you.”

She looked hurt. Good. Monsters that ate people deserved to be hurt, if only arbitrarily. 

“It’s important to have a tether, Tim. Do you have a tether?”

“What do you mean?”

“Something to keep you alive.” She smiled slightly. “I had Helen.”

“To help you kill yourself faster,” said Tim. 

“That’s not fair,” said Sasha, glare hardening. “She kept me solid. Without her, I wouldn’t have been able to stay.”

“You’d be better dead.”

“You don’t mean that,” she said. 

“Yes,” said Tim. “Yes, I do. You can’t read my thoughts, so-” He looked directly into her eyes, not breaking contact for a second, even while the force of being seen burned his eyes and made them water. “I wish you were dead, Sasha.”

She turned on her heel, and slammed the door behind her, hair swishing and swirling as she left. Tim sighed. It was better this way.

\---

Jon was at the topmost branches of the tree. On the lower branches, the tree had been as wide as London streets, and even if he slipped, there was no possibility of falling off. In the midmost branches, there were handholds, and he was nervous- nervous not terrified- of slipping. Up here, the wind was biting cold and stung his face, and rumors filled his ears like knives. He was not going to fall again. 

The last time he had fallen, he had hit his back against the bottom branches of the tree, his breath leaving him as he fell, and Martin resided in his mind's eye as he struggled to gain back the air into his lungs. 

It has been months of climbing the branches, to get to where he was now. 

Moths of molding his hands slick with blood into talons, and claws,until he was at a point where the tree limbs were so thin and spread out that he was jumping from branch to withered branch, praying and hoping with every leap that he didn’t hear a dull crack from beneath him, and go lurching back into the darkness. 

There was a wasp’s nest at the top of the tree. Gigantic and buzzing with life, he nearly fell off of his perch on the tree, because he saw a red dress and a white worm and in his heart, panic spiked. 

But it wasn’t a wasp’s nest, no. It was buzzing with the sweet smell of honey, and the bees were coated with pollen. 

It wasn’t harmful. He put his hand on the edge of the hive. “Hello. May I enter?”

The buzzing shifted upwards in tone, inviting him to become part of the hive, to know peace. “No,” he said. “I don’t think I want to become you.” And with that, he stepped inside the nest. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tws: Suicidal thoughts & ideation


	46. A whistling wind

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy black friday is finally over! I'm so tired.

Simon Fairchild. Basira didn’t particularly care about him, and he was the last on the list to kill, before he’d come into  _ her  _ archives, and asked  _ her  _ to solve the murder case that she created. And now, the most logical thing for her to do was kill him. He said himself that Mike wasn’t legally alive, and he wouldn’t be either, making her mission easier and easier. And he had no outside connections. That meant that all she had to do was take him down to the archives, and put a bullet in his brain. 

The tunnels were a wonderful place to hide a body. 

But meanwhile, Jude Perry was the thing on her mind. The statement she had pulled up, the one that told her exactly what she needed to know, and exactly what she didn’t want to hear. Despite it all, she didn’t want to to look at it, because it was ever harder to pick up a piece of paper that had everything you needed to know on it, and everything that you desperately didn’t  _ want  _ to know. 

She shook her head absently. Enough on that. Enough of Jude, she was a problem for a later date. No, in three days, she would call Simon back, have him come to the archives, and shoot him in the back. 

He wouldn’t survive that, would he? If it didn’t, she was certain Melanie could finish the job quickly. 

There was an itch on her trigger finger every time she thought about the mission, but it was left ignored. 

\---

When Jon stepped inside the wasp’s nest, it looked like a hospital room. In every way, perhaps, but the room was tinted a sticky gold, the honey dripping down the walls. 

He saw himself. Or, the thought he saw himself, because there was only a shade on the bed, and even as he looked, the hospital bed faded to a table for two, with a tired man sitting on once side, sipping a cup of earl gray. 

“Oliver Banks,” said Jon. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

Oliver set down his teacup and smiled. “You’re coming along so well in your powers,” he said. “Or at least you would be.”

“Where am I?”

“Charing Cross hospital,” said Oliver. “Third floor, long term coma patients ward. Visitors are allowed, but only one a day. But nobody ever comes.”

Jon blinked. “Sorry- Just- Sorry, this doesn’t look like a hospital.”

“No,” said Oliver. Your brain has a way of making it look much more pleasant. I’m sitting by your bed, speaking to a dead man right now. Where are you?”

“In a beehive,” said Jon. “Um, you’re drinking tea right now? It’s a very nice room, if a little bit sticky from the honey.”

Oliver snorted. “Some sense of humor,” he said. “You have a choice to make, Jonathan Sims.”

Jon stared blankly at Oliver. 

“You could die,” said Oliver. “That might be kinder to yourself right now. But you would be leaving people behind, and I think you have unfinished business you need to be reminded of.”

“Did Martin- did Martin visit me in the hospital?” Jon asked. 

Oliver smiled, but his eyes held no mirth. “Martin,” he mused. “He’s close to me, I can feel it.”

“What?” demanded Jon. “What do you mean he’s close to you? Is he in the hospital with us right now? There’s something you’re not telling me.”

Oliver pierced Jon with his honey- yellow eyes. “You can choose to live, or you can choose to go into the hearse. It’s unfinished business filled with pain, or it’s an unfinished life, with a dash of peace. This might be the last meaningful decision you get to make as the fully human Jonathan Sims.”

“What do you think I should do?”

“Me?” Oliver laughed, the corners of his eyes twitching up for the first time since their meeting. “I’m not even a reaper. It’s your life, and frankly, I don’t really care if you die now, or in fifty years. But I feel bad for you, so I’ve come to end your stagnant nature. What do  _ you  _ want to do?”

Jon stood up from his seat, bracing himself against the table. “I’m going to go,” he said.

Oliver raised his cup. “Do you know what to do?”

“Yes,” said Jon. “Yes, I think I do.”

“Good luck,” called Oliver, and Jon turned around, still holding the door frame. “You’re a good person, Jon. I hope you stay that way.”

“Right,” said Jon, then again, quieter. “...Right.”

And with that, he closed his eyes and fell into the leafy greens of the tree, plunging downwards and downwards, towards his fate. 

Fate  _ was  _ at the bottom, he was sure of it.

\---

Jon awoke to gasping breaths, a machine beeping crazily, and three doctors standing over him, looking very worried. 

With a rough tug, he pulled the IV line out of his arm, wincing as he did so. Continuing to move away from the bed, cords were pulled away from him, and machines were knocked down. “What?” he asked. Then he fell over, fainting again. 

He woke up in a different hospital bed, with a different doctor staring down at him. When his eyes blinked open, hers brightened. 

“How are you feeling?” she asked. 

“Um- er- Bad,” he settled on. 

She hummed. “Well, that’s to be expected. This time, can you refrain from removing the medical supplies? I understand that you’re in a state of panic, but we are attempting to figure out what’s been happening.”

“Can I call Georgie?”

The doctor handed him a phone. “You can’t check yourself out for another twenty four hours, until we’re able to make sure that you’ll be able to function without the supplements. But feel free to call your friends. I’m sure they’ll be very happy to hear from you.” She beamed at him. “You’re lucky, you know that?”

Jon didn’t feel lucky.

\---

“Georgie?”

Georgie sighed through the phone. “No, I’m not going to take him off the-  _ Jon?” _

He heard her bolt upright in the background. “Jon, you’re alive?”

“Um… yes.”

“For how long?”

“Now.”

There was rustling in the background, and it sounded like Georgie was throwing things helter-skelter in a bag. “Do they allow visitors? You know what, nevermind, I don’t care if they allow them or  not. What ward are you in?”

Jon glanced at the door. “I don’t know. I was in the coma patient ward, but I assume I’m being monitored much closer now.”

“Whatever,” said Georgie, “I’ll find you somehow. Oh my g-d, it’s good to hear from you, go, call Tim or someone, or literally anybody else. I’ll be there in-” she checked her watch- “About twenty minutes. Are you feeling okay? What do they have you on? How are you alive?”

“I don’t know,” said Jon. A pause. “Any of it, um, how long has it been?”

“About six months,” said Georgie. “Wait, what do you remember before your coma?”

Jon struggled to think. “We were going to burn down the archives, there was Jared Hopworth- um, Elias?”

“Yeah?”

“He shot… Daisy. And then I think,” he paused. “Did he shoot me?”

“Yeah.” said Georgie. “Thirteen times, in the chest. Anything else?”

Jon sighed, and closed his eyes. “Not really, no.”

“Elias is in prison for murder, Peter Lukas is running the institute, Daisy is dead-”

“And Martin?”

“Martin.”

“What.” There was a creeping feeling of dread rising in his gut. “What happened to Martin, Georgie?”

“The coffin,” she said. “Elias shoved him into the coffin.”

“The coffin.” Jon gaped. “You mean- he’s down there?”

“Yeah.”

Jon forgot everything the doctors had told him in a matter of seconds, as he pulled the IV line out of his arm, watching the heart monitor idly beep, and set off towards the institute. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw: murder
> 
> I started listening to rqg and,,, it's good. I like it.


	47. A Murder Mystery

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Basira makes some bad decisions.

Jon may have left the hospital, but Basira herself was blissfully unaware, and was currently thirty minutes away from her second murder. Hopefully her second murder. 

Simon Fairchild was coming to the archives to touch base with her, and she had a loaded gun on her waist, the safety off. It was a nice gun. Seventeen chambers, all of them loaded and ready for Simon Fairchild. 

If anybody had asked Basira about her nerves, she would firmly deny feeling anything at all, and then brush past them, in a perfect imitation of unconcerned annoyance. If anybody had seen her fingers shaking as she clutched the hem of her shirt, they would have known she was lying.

It got easier for her to kill people, it got exciting, it even got... _ enjoyable  _ at times. But the adrenaline rush was always there, whether or not she wanted it. Gun at the ready. Gun at the ready. 

Footsteps down the stairs, and she was ready- no, more than ready. Footsteps down the stairs and she was aiming her gun at the wrong man. 

Looking as haggard as the day the ambulance had wheeled him off, dressed only in blueish scrubs, and looking around the room frantically, was Jonathan Sims, the Archivist. 

“What are you doing here?” she asked, and at the same time he asked,

“Why do you have a gun trained on me?”

“I thought you were someone else,” she said, holstering it. “I thought you were dead! We all thought you were dead! Hell, how do we even know that it’s not something else that’s stolen your skin and is wearing it around, like the NotRosie?”

“Is Martin really in the coffin?” Jon asked.

“You haven’t answered my question yet,” she said.

“I don’t know,” said Jon. “I’ve been awake for less than two hours, what’s going on? Georgie said Daisy-”

Basira cocked her gun again, and held it up to Jon’s forehead. “ _ Don’t  _ say her name.”

Jon took a deep breath, and raised his hands, palms flat. “What’s happened?”

She holstered her gun once more. “I don’t care how you find out. Just don’t come down here for the next hour.”

\---

That ensured that Jon would be quietly watching Basira from an unseen room and storage closet for the next hour. 

He was always too curious for his own good. 

When he stepped into the storage closet, what hit him first was the blonde coffin, laying like a stone against the wall of the closet. Jon reached his hand out to touch the grainy wood, and drew it back when he heard the moaning from inside. Somebody was in pain, and Jon knew who it was that  _ he  _ heard. 

His fingers itched to pull open the lid, because if it was up to him, nobody deserved to rot inside that damned thing. He had made a choice to trust people, and then he had made a choice to do what Gertrude never got the chance for, and it was ruining him with grief. 

He returned his attention to Basira. To his surprise, she was not the only one standing in the dark of the archives. A man he recognized was there as well, because he’d stayed in that man’s house for two days after- after  _ Daisy. _

Jon saw Basira’s hands twitch on her gun as she sat down across from him, and he inquired after- Jon’s heart leapt into his chest-  _ Micheal Crew. _

“Yeah, I think I’ve got a lead,” he heard Basira say. 

He jumped out of the shadows just in time to see her fill the old man with lead. 

Even the tiniest gasp out of his mouth brought him to her attention. She looked up to see him standing over the dead man, and glared. 

“You aren’t going to tell anyone about this.” 

“I’m not- I’m not going to tell anyone about this,” he agreed reluctantly.

“Good.” She smirked grimly. “I need to get the body down to the tunnels. Care to help me?”

Jon didn’t, but when somebody still has three chambers left in their gun, and they’ve made it very clear they’re eager to shoot you, you help them hide a body. 

“What is this?” asked Jon as he dragged the feet of a very dead Simon Fairchild to the tunnels. Then he winced. “Actually, don’t bother telling me.”

Basira dropped Simons head in favor of training her gun on Jon. Again. “Are you one of them?” she asked. 

“One of- What?”

“Him.” She waved her gun towards Simon. “A monster.”

“No- I don’t think so?”

The gun was back on him. “Don’t lie to me!” And she was crying. Slowly, quietly, barely noticeable, but Jon’s brain supplied the fact for him. “Why do you get to live?”

He held his hands up as well, and now Simon was lying on the floor, grinning even in death, as if there was some sick joke neither of them were aware of. “I don’t understand!”

“Don’t be stupid.  _ She  _ died. It only took three bullets and she was dead. Why do you take thirteen and live?”

“I-”

“Because it’s  _ not  _ you! I didn’t like Jon, but I like  _ you  _ even less. Get out.”

“Basira, I don’t understand-”

“Even if you used to be Jon, I don’t think you are anymore. Nobody survives what you did, nobody gets to live after being pumped full of lead unless-” she took a shuddering breath- “Unless they’re a monster, and that’s what you are. Get  _ out,  _ or I won’t hesitate to put you right back where you came from.”

Jon left without a comment. Basira hated him, wanted him dead, didn’t even believe he was truly  _ him,  _ but she was alive. Maybe that was enough. It was more than anybody else got. 

He went in search of Tim. 

The institute was filled with a cold fog, the lights seeming dimmer the farther away from the archives he traveled. Something was pushing him back. Something- or someone- didn’t want to see him anymore. 

Jon didn’t think about the implications behind that. 

“Tim?” He called. 

“Go away,” came a muffled voice back to him. 

“Tim!” he called, more urgently this time, pouring everything he knew how to harness into the sound of his own voice. 

“Jon?”

Relief washed over him like the cold mist. “Yes,” he said. “I’m alive, Tim?”

Firmer. Stronger. Possessing a power Jon didn’t think Tim had. “Go  _ away,  _ Jon.”

“Please, Tim-”

“ _ Away.” _

Jon left. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tws: suicidal thoughts, murder


	48. A Journey

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Helen and Sasha fuck shit up.

Jude Perry was the next on Basira’s list of people to kill, or he would have been, if she hadn’t lost access to the doorways that carried her. But that was fine. Hidden deep, deep, deep within the tunnels of Robert Smirke was another monster that deserved a bullet. 

The thing that had pretended to be Rosie  _ was  _ going to die. 

This murder, she thought, was going to be planned better than the previous ones. Sure, Crew was expertly planned and executed, but Judes death didn’t go as planned. Simon was just as easy to kill as Crew, but the NotRosie… she would be just as hard to kill as Jude. Harder, even, and harder still without Daisy as an anchor to hold Basira in place. Even so, there were things she could employ to help her with her mission. The only thing that could kill a monster was a bigger one. 

Basira didn’t want to think about the implications of what that made her. 

She didn’t want to think about what siding with a bigger monster made her. She didn’t want to think about what she’d become. Even so.

“Helen,” she called. 

“What?” was the answer. “You insult my corridors, then you want my help? So ungrateful, humans are.”

Basira took a deep breath, reminding herself to stay calm. “I’m not going to go into your corridors,” she said. “But-  _ but  _ I do need your help. 

Helen smiled. “And you think you’ll get it after the insults you’ve dealt me?”

“I hope.”

“Why?”

“You like chaos. If you can do what I think you can, you’ll be delighted by the chaos I can cause.”

Helen curled her fingers around her chin. “I’m listening.”

“Nikola Orsinov.”

“What about her?”

“Time doesn’t exist in the spiral. It’s a mantra you’re ever so fond of spouting, so can you use it?”

“Time doesn’t exist anywhere, Basira.”

“Right,” said Basira, closing her eyes. “But if Tim doesn’t exist anywhere- Linearly, I mean, can’t you do something with that?”

“You mean to ask if I can bring back the dead.”

“Yes.”

“No. I can’t.”

Basira shoved her face in her hands out of frustration. “What’s the  _ point  _ of time not existing if you can’t  _ do  _ anything with it?”

“Time doesn’t exist. That’s a fact, not a loophole.”

“What can you do, then?”

Helen paused. “I can’t bring a person back,” she said. “But I can open a door to them.”

“I can see Daisy again?”

Helen sighed. “Not really. It won’t be her. It’s a- A  _ shade.” _

“A shade,” said Basira slowly. She looked up at Helen and blinked. “Enough to be a trick?”

“What do you want to do?”

“There’s a monster underneath the institute,” said Basira. 

“The NotRosie.”

“Yes. And she- it deserves to die. So I want to bring Nikola in, because I’m not stupid. I can’t kill it myself, and I don’t think you will, but I want it dead.”

Helen hummed. “You could kill it,” she said. 

“Why? I couldn’t kill Jude, and this is less of a person than even her!” 

“Did you really think you lived through those burns?”

Basira blinked. “Yes?” 

Helen threw back her head and  _ laughed.  _ Actually  _ laughed. _ “Darling, you haven’t been a real human for a  _ long  _ time.” 

The gun slipped from Basiras hand. “What?”

“My doorway was just the last step in your transformation. You don’t really need me anymore, I’m sure.”

“Helen? What do you mean I’m not human? What do you mean-” Basira stumbled over herself, tripping towards the door, but it vanished before she got to it. Tripping through the empty space where there used to be a door, she cursed. 

She  _ was  _ human, because if a monster was killing a monster, it was no better than any of the statements. If she was human, well then, she got to be a martyr. 

But Helen was right. So Basira grabbed the bone blade knife of Melanie’s off the table, and headed down the trapdoor. 

\---

Tim hated him. Melanie hated him. Basira  _ definitely  _ hated him. He slumped down at his desk, shoving his glasses to the floor, where they rattled as they hit the ground. A headache grew in the  corner of his eye. 

“Hello,” said Sasha. 

“Go away,” said Jon, echoing Tim. 

Sasha pouted. “Nobody wants to talk to me anymore,” she said. “Not Tim, not you, and I can’t even go down to see Martin.”

“That’s because he’s dead,” said Jon. 

“No he’s not,” said Sasha. 

“Yes,” said Jon. “You don’t come back out of the coffin.”

“That doesn’t mean you aren’t still alive.”

Realization dawned in his eyes. “You mean… you mean he’s still down there? Alive and nobody has tried to save him?”

“Nobody knew he was there,” said Sasha. 

“You did! You could have told someone! You could have gotten someone to save him!”

“Please. You think anybody cares enough to go down in the coffin?”

“I do!” 

“And you’re the only one. Melanie has her own quest, Basira’s not even human anymore, and Tim would probably kill himself if he didn’t have a job to do before he got around to it. Believe it or not, you’re really the only person that would risk their neck for a hopeless cause.”

Jon gaped. “How do I get him out?”

“Out of the coffin? You don’t.”

“Yes, I do,” he nearly screamed. “I don’t care what you think is possible, I’m  _ going  _ to get him out!”

“I admire your resolve.”

He threw a metal paperweight at her, and went to find himself an anchor. 

\---

Creating an anchor didn’t work nearly as well as he was hoping. 

For one thing, his fingers, he discovered, did not come off nearly as well as they had before his coma. In fact, they didn’t come off at all, which was surprising, given that if a human chopped off their own finger, it generally would not grow back. 

The blood did not evaporate as the finger healed, so he was left with his desk covered in blood, his own, that had seemingly come from nowhere.

“Jon?”

It was Melanie. He sighed, and turned around to face her. 

“Why are you covered in blood?”

He spread his arms wide. “Don’t worry, it's all my own.”

“That’s not as reassuring as you think.”

He sighed, and set down the knife. “I need an anchor. So I can get Martin out of the coffin, and I thought the best bet would be a piece of my own body. “

“And so you decided to cut off your own finger.”

He looked apologetically up at her. “Yes. But it’s not working nearly as well as I thought it would be.”

“I can tell.” Melanie threw down her bag, and pulled out her own knife. “Want me to do it for you?” 

Jon blinked. 

“Obviously, your problem is that you can't get it off in one blow,” she said. “You can still feel the pain, right?”

“Yes?”

“Well, then,” she nodded. “I can probably get it off in one swing before it heals again, problem solved. Which finger were you cutting off?”

Jon paused. “You’ll really do it for me?”

“I’ve been wanting to bring a knife to you for a very long time.”

Jon paused, and gave Melanie his hand. “I’d appreciate it if you went for the pinkie,” he said. “Less useful than the other four.”

Melanie smirked. “Good thing you said that, because I was about to take off your thumb.”

Jon paused. “That was a joke, right?”

“Yeah,” she said. “I was actually going to go for your middle finger.”

“Wha-” said Jon, and then he screamed. 

Melanie had brought the blade down on his pinkie, harder than he thought she would have ever been able to. Blood spurted like a river, but the stump healed over almost immediately, and Melanie was left holding a writhing finger, which she immediately dropped on the blood-soaked table in disgust. 

“Oh,  _ gross.” _

“Did it work?”

Melanie motioned to the finger on the table. “It seems so.”

“Right,” said Jon, gingerly picking his finger up off the table. “I guess I’ll find a place for this, then?”

“Clean up the table,” said Melanie. “Heaven knows the janitors don’t deserve this.”

They both paused, staring at each other before Melanie broke the silence. ‘Well, here’s hoping you don’t find your way out of the coffin.”

Jon didn’t know if she was joking. 


	49. A Journey

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Martin and Jon

The tunnels weren’t scary. Not anymore, and Basira almost doubted that anything could scare her anymore, until she felt her hands go numb on her gun. So she was plenty scared, but you spend enough time in the fear, you forget it exists. 

Doors creaked open, reminding her of her time in the spiral of mazes. It was much too drab and gray in these corridors, Basira thought. Helen would have things to say about it. She snorted. 

There was a hiss from behind her. She whipped around, her face nearly turning white with fear. “Show yourself!”

_ “Who’s there?” _

“I’m not kidding,” growled Basira. “I  _ will  _ find you.”

_ “I see you.” _

Three shots, and nothing changed. But she was three chambers down, and NotRosie was laughing.

“What?” said the Thing. “You thought you could kill me with bullets?”

Basira gripped her gun tighter even, if possible. She took a deep breath. “Yes,” she said. “I think I can.”

And then a singsong: “You’ll have to find me first!”

Basira closed her eyes, not feeling any fear at the lack of light permeating her eyelids.  _ Left.  _

She fired left, and heard another laugh. “You’ll have to do better than that, I’m afraid! I’ve survived many things, and  _ you  _ certainly don’t scare me!”

“You should be scared,” said Basira, opening her eyes, and shuddering at the sight in front of her. Molded flesh melting like wax, but not the same way Jude melted. Almost as if the wax was going to melt  _ over  _ you, and the grin was going to consume you. The cracking limbs were much too large to belong to any human. Unless, though Basira with revulsion, It was not one arm, but many joined. And as she looked, it morphed like an optical illusion, hurting her eyes, reveling in her pain, watching her headache develop.

She closed her eyes again. “You  _ should  _ be scared of me,” she said again, and fired her gun, fingers not even hesitating on the trigger. Point blank and a steady hand. 

There wasn’t even time to scream. 

When Basira opened her eyes, there was a monster in front of her, and she was covered with something too cherry-like to be considered blood. It wasn’t anymore human when dead than it had been alive. She didn’t shoot it again. That would have been a waste of bullets. Instead, Basira leaned down, kneeling in the gore pooling in the damp tunnel, and seized the eyes. She was surprised it even had eyes, in retrospect. for things like this shouldn’t have such plain eyes, and such eyes that they cannot bleed, and seem to grin within their sockets. 

She put them in her pocket, and they clinked like glass as she hauled herself out of the trapdoor, and into Helen’s waiting arms. 

“Human, is it?”

“Shut up,” said Basira, leveling her gun at Helen. 

“I’m not scared of you,” said Helen. 

“I’ll tell you what I told that thing, then,” she said. ‘You  _ should  _ be.”

It seemed like hours before they broke eye contact. 

“I don’t say I’m not scared of you because you can’t kill me,” said Helen. 

“Then why aren’t you afraid?”

“I’m not afraid of death,” said Helen simply. “The world can fall and I am madness. Death is so small when I am here.”

“Impressive,” said Basira. “And what happens to Sasha when you die?”

Helen smiled, showcasing all her teeth. “She’s not weak because I helped her.”

Basira lifted her gun to level at Helens forehead again. “You say I can kill Jude now?”

“I believe you can.”

“Not enough.”

“I don’t know if you can kill her the same way you killed that,” said Helen, “But you can certainly try.”

“Take me there.”

“Right now? You need to sleep, I think. I’ve heard that it’s quite important for humans.”

“Not human.”

Helen rolled her eyes. “Human  _ enough.  _ Tomorrow,” she said. “Then you can go on your grand little murder spree all across the country.”

\---

Jon took his time cleaning up the mess on the table. With every second that he spent mopping it up, finding a jar for the finger, (still writhing in the jar) he felt guiltier and guiltier. He knew why he was spending so much time with the wipes, and it was because he didn’t want to face the darkness and closed space of the coffin. He had spent his time since the fire running through a tree. Martin had spent his with the worms. Again. 

It was time. No, He wasn’t going to wait, and be  _ scared  _ of letting the buried claim him, because Martin had been living with the buried. Jon could do this. He could do this.

Right?

As he opened the door to wander into the depths, he felt no certainty at all. 

At first, it was merely quite chilly. Jon wrapped his arms tightly around himself, wishing that he’d brought a coat with him, or even something like the red string, as he took passageway after passageway, disappearing deeper into the labyrinth. 

His want for a coat quickly left him, as the cold dirt swallowed him, scraping him, consuming him, pulling against him in every way possible as he shoved himself through the tunnels. With every step, the walls screamed at him that he wasn’t meant to be there, that they could smell the outside on him, that he would never be theirs, that he  _ could  _ never be theirs, and this was his punishment. His punishment for living, and for daring to tempt fate and find Martin. Martin! That was right, he was here for Martin, and he had to pull Martin out, because Martin didn’t deserve to be trapped in the dirt. It didn’t matter what Jon was, or where, because he  _ had to  _ find Martin. If he found Martin, Everything would be okay. Martin. Martin. Martin.

Cold seized through his veins, and he didn’t know how long he’d been trapped. It was a dreamless sleep, as compact as the space he was in, and the earth had molded around him as he had stayed still, trying to sleep, and it was coming for his heart. 

He could stop when he found Martin. 

The passageways were getting tighter, the world wanted him there less and less, and still, he persisted, because there was someone left to find. There were no more stairs, like in the early days of his exploration, all that existed was the wet and dark mud as he squelched through it, falling his way to the bottom of the pit as it screamed around him. 

Hands reaching, touching him enveloping as they searched for a solid person, and he became smaller underneath the unwanted touch because the hands were not for him, and they squeezed him more than the dirt could. They brushed his arms, his legs, his tape recorder. (Still with him in the darkness, a bulky nuisance but still a comfort, to be sure.)

No, He only needed to find one man, and one day, as he reached out both hands in desperation, grasping for something that would not appear, he felt hands slot into his own, and he nearly cried with relief. 

“Martin,” he said. ‘Martin, Martin, Martin.” It was all okay now, because he was crushed in the darkness, the unpleasantness, the foul air, but he was trapped with Martin, and somehow, that made it okay as he leaned into the touch. “Martin,” he said. “I’ve found you.”

“You have,” said Martin. “You’ve found me.”

Jon stayed silent, trying to remember what else there was. It was itching at him, nagging the back of his brain, but he couldn’t remember. 

“Jon?” Martin prompted. “Is there something you wanted to say?”

“Yes,” said Jon, “But I don’t think it matters anymore.” He concentrated, screwing up his face as he did so. “I came down here for a reason, but I think it was to see you.”

“Martin laughed, dry and raspy in the darkness. “How’s Tim doing?”

“Tim,” said Jon, not comprehending the question at all. Then, “Tim! That’s why I came here for you, that’s why-” He broke off. “I don’t remember.”

“Tim?”

“Yes! He’s up there, and you’re down here, and so I came down here to- to be with you? That doesn’t feel quite right, but I think it is.”

“You walked into the coffin to be with me?”

“Yes,” said Jon. “And something else, but I don’t remember it.”

“I thought you hated me,” said Martin. 

“No. I never hated you. I was just- just rude, and snobby, and I resented that you were new.”

“And the dog?”

“The dog was part of it,” said Jon. “But I think I just didn’t want to have to get to know somebody.”

“And now you’re in a coffin because I was here.”

“Yes.”

“I’m glad you came down here,” said Martin, “Even if it means I’ll never get to see the sun again, at least you get to be here with me.”

“Yes,” said Jon. ‘I’m glad that I’m here with you as well.” He paused. “The outside- the sunshine- the- yes! I came down here because we have to- we have to- to…” He trailed off. 

“Leave.”

“Go back?” Jon furrowed his eyebrows. “But I can’t leave you here. And- and Martin! Please don’t leave me here, either.”

“I’m not going to leave you here, but I think there  _ was  _ a reason you came down here, only you can’t remember it because the coffin doesn’t want you to know.”

“I said,” Jon restated, “I came down here for  _ you.”  _ Again, he struggled with his words as his brain tried to form a thought he wasn’t allowed to have. “For you to go-”

“Go up,” Martin finished. He gripped Jon’s arm tightly. “Listen to me, we have things to do, and so we need to get out of the coffin, we can do that, right?”

“Out!” Jon shouted, and began to mumble under his breath, “Out of the coffin, out of the coffin, out of the buried, out of here, sunlight again, out of the coffin, we can get out of the coffin,” 

“Jon,” said Martin, shaking him.”

“No,” said Jon, “If I don't keep saying it, I  _ will  _ forget. Out of the coffin, out of the coffin, out of the coffin...”

\---

The mumbling was getting a bit annoying for Martin, but he wasn’t going to admit it, not when it was the only thing Jon had, as Martin’s fingers went numb from Jon clasping them. 

“Out of the coffin, Out of the coffin, we have to get  _ out  _ of here, out of the coffin, out of the buried, out, out, out…” 

“It’s getting roomier,” said Martin.

“Shhhh. Out of the coffin, out of the coffin, out of the coffin.”

Martin sighed, and gave up, trying to regain some sort of feeling in his fingers as Jon dragged them along. 

It hurt to walk. Martin didn’t tell Jon that, or even wince in pain, but the months spent in the coffin had hurt him, He couldn’t reach down to feel his legs inside the tunnels, but to him, they felt like skin and bone, and he was almost certain that if the walls hadn’t been holding him up, he would have collapsed. Months spent damp will not do anything good for mobility. So it hurt to walk, and Martin tried not to feel jealous about how  _ easy  _ it was for Jon to walk along, how invigorated he seemed, how his will never wavered.

Martin was impressed of course, but it got tiresome, being the person that called for rests, or the one that had to be protected, because he wasn’t supposed to need help. He was the one that made the tea, that helped the others, he wasn’t the one that accepted the help. He shoved down the bile, and decided he could deal with feelings once he saw the light. 

The tunnel was definitely getting larger. Where once, the walls had held him up, preventing his stumbling and the trenchfoot he was now certain he had, walking was now more trouble than ever before. Jon looked at him, worried, but never ceased his muttering, even when his voice was hoarse with the strain. 

And then there were stairs again, weaving through the tunnels. Martin wasn’t aware of the passing of time, but he knew it must have happened, because he could no longer reach his hands out and touch the sides of the walls. So they were getting closer. 

Wood creaked as Jon, still holding firmly to Martin’s hand approached the door holding the coffin closed. He pushed upwards, slowly at first, and then harder, and harder, and harder. The door didn’t budge, locked from the outside, and finally Jon began to scream, all of his rage and suppressed terror coming out all at once as he banged on the coffin lid. And for the first time in as long as Martin had been with him, he broke down, something other than the mumbling of remembrance. 

‘No. No, we can’t have come this far, just to get stopped, no! No, we  _ will  _ make it out. Martin. Look at me.” Martin obeyed. “I  _ will  _ get you out of the coffin, listen,” He said, throwing his arms around Martin, and Martin embraced him back. “We are going to get out of this,” he nearly sobbed, but kept the last of his resolve. “I will not let us get trapped, I won’t  _ let  _ it!” He hammered on the coffin lid again, screaming hoarsely for all of the kingdom of trapped souls to hear. 

And the impossible happened. 

The door creaked open, and Jon stepped aside, waiting for Martin to climb the last final steps of the escape. Martin tried, but his legs, already sore and infected and dead, gave way, and so Jon hauled him the last three steps until they were out, sobbing and holding onto each other as if they were the only two things that existed in the universe. 

“We’re out,” Jon gasped. ‘We’re actually out!” 

And Martin began to laugh, giggling at first, slowly, maniacally, as he processed the situation, it turned into belly laughs as the two embraced, and Martin, sobbing, hurting, hiccuping with tears rolling down his cheeks, looked up. 

Melanie was standing over the coffin, holding a jar and a key. 

“Jon,” said Martin, interrupting the euphoria of fresh air and light. “We’re the first ones out. In- In forever. We’re the  _ only  _ ones who ever made it out.”

“So the finger worked?” asked Melanie.

“The-”

“Must have,” said Jon. “Working as an anchor to keep me up here.”

“Finger?”

Melanie turned her attention to Martin. “Didn’t you notice he’s missing a finger?”

Martin carefully took hold of Jon’s hands. “Your finger,” he said. 

“It’s okay,” said Jon, “Because now we’re both out.”

“But- your  _ finger!”  _

“It’s not important,” said Jon. “It was my left hand.” 

“But you gave up a finger!” said Martin, more shocked than outraged.

“Yes?”

“That's- Jon!”

Jon rolled his eyes. “Blah, blah blah, not healthy, you need your fingers. It’s not important. You’re out of the coffin, so it’s not important.”

Martin stared at Jon. “I love you,” he said. 

“I- What?”

Melanie rolled her eyes. 

“ _ Jon,  _ you got rid of your finger to save me from the coffin, something that that you knew had only a slim chance of working, and a very high chance of killing you? You  _ cut off  _ your own finger, and spent what probably felt like weeks trekking through the dirt and mud to find me? You- you’re so dumb!”

“Actually,” said Jon, seeming to have registered only one part of the sentence, “Melanie cut off my finger for me. I couldn’t get it off in one go without it healing up too quickly, and so she had to do it for me. Oh- I have healing powers now. I was planning on doing some research on what exactly it can heal and looking at when it started, but I only actually noticed it when I was trying to cut off my finger.”   


Martin stared at Jon. “I love you,” he said again. 

“I- yes?”

“G-d.” said Melanie. 

“I do too,” said Jon, slightly confused. 

“You are the dumbest person I have ever met,’ said Melanie.

“I got a degree from oxford!”

“And Martin has skin falling off the back of his legs, so we need to get him to A&E before they have to chop off the whole leg.”

Martin winced. “Actually, it might be to the point where I won’t exactly be able to use my legs anymore, even if I get to keep them. I picked up a bit about nerve and muscle damage when I was in the library, and it seems as if the condition has already progressed far past the point where I would regularly seek medical attention.”

Jon and Melanie both stared. 

“But that’s okay,” he added hurriedly. “I can still do archive work and it’s not as if my life is ruined, it’s just-” 

“I love you,” said Jon. 

“Okay, let's get the two lovebirds to the hospital before they die of muscle and nerve damage,” said Melanie. 

Jon nodded. “Right. And after that, we still have the issue of payroll, continuing the research, Peter, Tim…” He trailed off as he counted on his fingers. “We have a lot to brief you on, Martin.”

Martin attempted to stand, and winced as his legs gave way again. ‘Jon,” he said, “Can you-” He gestured at his legs. 

Jon nodded immediately. “Of course,” he said, putting one of Martin's arms over his shoulder, and dragging them both towards Melanie’s car.

“It’s not like it’ll be the first time I’ve parked this van in front of A&E,” she said, unlocking the doors. “Alright, who wants shotgun?”

Jon looked at Martin. “I think we’ll both sit in the back,” said Jon, and Martin nodded with the suggestion. 

“Alright,” Melanie said, “I hope neither of you get carsick, because if either of you barf in the back of my van, you’re paying for the cleaning.”

“Noted,” said Jon, as he and Martin dragged themselves into the back. Neither of them made any move to separate from each other as Melanie sped off. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm shit at writing romantic pieces, thank you.


	50. A statement reading

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jude has a statement.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Good luck to everyone that has finals in the next couple of weeks!

“Statement of Jude Perry, regarding an encounter with Agnes Montague.” Basira took a deep, shuddering breath as she looked at the coffee stained statement set before her. Always important, right? And a statement by Jude Perry- well, that was something indeed. With shaking hands and a stuttering heart, she began to read. 

“I don’t come to the institute. rarely or never, take your pick of what words you want me to use.” 

Basira wanted to put the statement down. She didn’t  _ want  _ to know what was going on in Judes head, she didn’t  _ want  _ to get closer to the woman that had nearly killed her, she wanted to pull the trigger of a gun without a thought for the consequences. But she lifted the statement again, and continued to force the words from her throat. 

“But I did this time. Not because I care about getting this recorded. I don’t really care if any of my history burns, because in the end it  _ doesn’t matter,  _ and all of it can go up in flames. No, I came here because what I have to say will cause far too many problems for whoever is reading it. 

Agnes Montague. She’s a familiar name in the institute, I’m sure. The damned messiah, the literal and metaphorical Montague to the house of the web, the imperfect savior, the burning bush of Moses, the sweet girl that stopped an apocalypse simply by  _ being.  _

Frankly, I did care about her. That, I don’t plan to lie about. But she could have told her own story if she wanted to, so I’m not going to tell a sob story when your archive is already full of those, courtesy of the Lukas family. 

But I think if your precious archive learns about the way she hung herself, it will  _ hurt,  _ and so that, I plan to tell. 

It was a cold night when she died, but that doesn’t bother a cult of desolation. Have you ever wondered where the crushing fear of all consuming cold, the frostbite, the desecration of everything  you knew as it is shrouded in white as your life is snuffed out belongs?

It belongs to the desolation just as much as the fire. 

The sea can belong to both the buried and the vast at the same time, just as the cold is us and the lonely, and the spiral and the stranger swirl together, and the dark melds its way in and out of the fears, tainting them all. 

I’m getting poetic, aren’t I? G-ddamnit. That’s the effect of the institute, I suppose. 

So the cold that night didn’t bother us, because we own it as much as the fire. They feel the same when you get to the highest of extremes. 

We were waiting for her in the park, all of us standing in a group as the pedestrians avoided us. And then we saw that she was walking with a  _ man.  _ Not one of us, or any of the fears had claimed him, however, because he belonged truly and solely to Agnes, her little pet of a boy. 

From the distance we saw her, slowly approaching us. The waves of auburn hair were unmistakable, and finally the world would end with the desolation, and it would be  _ glorious.  _

And then she kissed him, and all of the control we had over her burned out as she gave it to him. It was devastating, it was the end of an era, it was the destruction of all that could have gone right, as she burned the web out of herself, moving it from her soul to the spiderweb scar that laced his face in the frostbitten night. 

I would have gotten a good laugh out of the pain she caused that poor, naive man, if I hadn’t been so upset that she was going to be gone from us that night. 

How did I know she’d be gone from us the very night she was given the choice to leave? She’d tried to hang herself, or slit her wrists, or take enough pills to neutralize an elephant before. None of it had worked, and she’d despaired that she couldn’t die. So tonight, as the web burned out of her, she was going to kill herself, and finally stay dead. 

She talked with us, she laughed with us, she burnt her way through the forest as we reveled in the pure destruction we could cause. And then we, a stupid group of stupid people, let her make her own way home. I followed her. 

I didn’t stop her, didn’t even try. She has her own choice, and as cruel as I am, control is not my brand of power. So I watched her as she traveled back to the house of the Web where she grew up, and took herself to the largest tree in the yard. 

And then I watched her as she pulled rope out of her handbag, and deftly looped it into a noose around her neck, and then the tree. 

I’m not going to tell you a horror story about what it looks like to watch someone kill themselves, and I’m not going to feed your institute as I tell you about something that’s already happened.

I think I’m going to tell you what it looks like to watch a reverberation of opposites collide in a finality of life. 

Here is what it is. It is a complete undoing of the world, because as she hung herself, it was as if I had died on the inside. 

That’s not a metaphor for anything, and I’m not being dramatic. I’m not one to use poetic language. With the exception of when the eye wants me to, of course. Even then, I could resist, but I’m  _ in  _ the institute right now, so it’s all moot. 

No, her death caused me physical pain like no other deaths, like nobody else that I’ve ever been bound to. 

Where was I going with this? Right. So if her death caused  _ me  _ that amount of pain, that loss, imagine for a second, what losing an archivist would feel like. 

When we lost Agnes, our messiah, it felt like the fire inside had been consumed by its own rage, and all that was left was dying embers. I wonder what it would feel like for a servant of the eye. 

I don’t really care myself, of course, but a statement is food for the eye, and I  _ do  _ hope that this asks more questions than it answers. 

Dear Gertrude, do you think that if you died, your assistants would be set free? Or would they lose their seeing? 

Dear Gertrude, I do hope you die so I can find out. 

And Jonah, if you’re reading this… I’d be exceptionally interested in seeing what happens when Gertrude Robinson dies.”

Basira’s eyes flicked to the last line, and she stopped reading with a shudder. So that was what the statement was, nothing more. A sick game by Jude set up to cause chaos, and not even done well.

But… there were inaccuracies. Small enough ones that Basira wouldn’t have noticed, if she hadn’t gotten to the very last line of the statement. 

“Jonah,” it said. 

“Jonah,” presumably as in Magnus. 

How long had Jude been alive for? And why was she interested in the demise of Gertrude Robinson? Why was only she connected to Agnes, the only one to follow her to the tree? The fears intermingled, so how separate was she from everything else, really? And did Jude really care about another person?

All questions, all new questions. Jude was right. Her statement created far more mysteries than it solved. 

But the one question lingering the longest, the one that mattered the most was simple: How much of this truly matters, and how much of it was a bullshit red herring?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw- suicide


	51. A Second Try

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Basira makes a stupid decision, Melanie sorts things out, and Jon and Martin are reunited.

“Jude.”

Jude grinned. “Basira. I didn’t think you’d try to kill me again, not after what happened last time.”

“I’m not here to kill you,” said Basira. “I have a proposal.”

“Not looking for a relationship right now, I’m afraid.”

Basira glared. “I read your statement.”

“Already? I only gave it, oh, about ten years ago.”

“You’re trying to manipulate us in it.”

“I don’t  _ do  _ manipulation.”

“Fine,” said Basira. “You  _ lied,  _ then.”

Jude raised her hand, causing Basira to flinch. “I didn’t  _ lie _ , either. What reason would I have for that?”

“You said it yourself. Chaos.”

“Bring in your archivist, then. Ask him if it’s a false statement, and then you’ll see that I’m not lying.” Basira paused. Jude quirked her eyebrow upward. “But you aren’t sharing this with him, are you?”

Basira took a deep breath. “You answer my questions. If the answers make sense, I might believe you.”

“I don’t do ultimatums.”

“Would it help if I said please?”

Jude ignored the question. “What was the proposal you had for me?”

Basira sighed. “If it was real- which I’m still not sure about- then we could help each other out. I need information and you need- what?”

“Nothing much, I’m afraid. So I’m afraid you’re out of luck.”

“What if I gave you a bonfire?”

“What bonfire could  _ you  _ give me that I couldn’t make?”

Basira stared Jude directly in the eye. “Did you see the institute burn a year ago?”

“I did.” Jude smiled, a real one this time, although it was cruel and her happiness came only from the pain of others. “That’s what you want me to do, then?”

“Among other things.”

“Other things?”

“Murder.”

“And you’ll give me…?”

“First pickings in the murders. The chance to attempt a ritual.” Basira took another deep breath. “And I’ll convert.”

Jude looked at her in disbelief. “You convert first. Then, I’ll help you with your murders.”

They shook hands, Basira wincing as the pain hit her, but grasping firmly as she stared into Judes eyes. “Pleasure working with you,” Basira said. 

\---

Jon and Martin were both covered in dirt, clinging to each other as if their lives depended on it. The car ride to the hospital was utterly silent, until Melanie made a hard stop at a red light, and the two of them lurched forward, into the seat in front of them as Melanie cursed. 

“It was so cold,” said Jon. 

Martin nodded. “Like you’d never get warm again, despite being encased in dirt.”

“It was more than cold. It was a feeling of hopelessness, of stagnation, of knowing that there is no way out of that which has claimed you unwillingly. That you are so large when there are ants roaming the earth, that you are so small and yet still shoved somewhere where you must be smaller, be smaller, be smaller still-”

“Jon.”

Jon blinked, and shook his head slightly. ‘Right.” 

“It’s just the-” Martin motioned. “Do you have to?”

“I don't think so. It’s not- not voluntary. Just-” Jon sighed, and pressed himself closer to Martin. “Just that it feels like where I’m supposed to be.”

“Back in the coffin?”

“No. Back with the statements.”

“Oh.” 

They lulled into steady silence, listening to the hum of the engine and Melanie's occasionally swearing at the other drivers, until she was suddenly face to face with the two of them, lugging them out of the back of her van. “Come on,” she said. “Come on, we have to get you to the hospital, and then you won’t be my problem anymore.” 

They stumbled out of the back of the van nearly tripping over themselves, until she dragged them inside, and up to the waiting desk. 

The receptionist looked at the three of them with obvious concern. “What are you here for?” he asked. 

“They got…” Melanie paused. “Buried.”

“Do you have details?”

“Like… caving and stuff. And I just found them.” She paused. “We’re from The Magnus Institute.”

“Ah, the Magnus Institute. This way.” The receptionist stood up and motioned for them to follow him. 

Melanie, slightly bewildered, obeyed, shoving Jon and Martin towards the door. “I think they’re in shock or something.” She pulled out her phone. “Can you call me when they’re ready to be released?”

He handed her a sheet of paper. “Fill this out. Are you either of their emergency contacts?”

Melanie frowned. “I guess I’m the only one alive enough to be an emergency contact.” Ignoring the stunned look, she filled out the paperwork, and left. 

She had a meeting to attend.

\---

“Martin’s out of the coffin.”

Elias looked up. “Why did you think it necessary to tell me?”

“Because you were wrong. Again. It  _ is  _ possible to walk back out of the buried, because they just did it.” 

Elias turned a page in his book. “Fascinating.” 

Melanie grabbed the bars on his cell. “You don’t even seem surprised!”

“Of  _ course  _ I’m not surprised. I was watching you.”

“So what? Did you want him to get out?”

Elias paused longer than necessary, and Melanie gaped at him. 

“You did.”

“I didn’t.”

“No,  _ why _ ?”

Elias slammed his book shut. “You said it yourself. I don’t manipulate, I’m not Annabelle.”

Melanie grinned. “I just said you weren’t  _ good  _ at it. Not that you wouldn’t try.” She looked down. “Hey, is that from the institute's library?”

He held the book up, cover facing her. “A scholarly analysis of supernatural sightings on rural roadsides, and why the spirits tend to search these places specifically. Yes. It’s utter hogwash,” said  Elias. 

“Where did you get it?”

“From the institute's library, as established previously.”

“No, I mean who keeps bringing you books, then?”

“Peter. Or more accurately, Tim, as ordered by Peter.”

“Tim… visits you?”

“Not by choice.”

“Speaking of the institute library, found anything recently relating to the Tundra?”

Elias fixed her with a blank stare. “Changing topics won’t work. I’m not  _ stupid,  _ you know.”

“Could have fooled me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tw: A whole lot of trauma, buried, honestly, I don't know what triggers to add. It's a whole lot of trauma.


	52. A Conversion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Basira makes a risky decision. Melanie also makes a risky decisions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! I hope you have a good new year, good luck if you haven't done finals, remember to stay safe and healthy!

Basira stood at the altar, hands shaking like they never had before. Perhaps from fear, perhaps from the burns covering her, perhaps from something else entirely.

“How do I do it?”

Jude handed her a can of gasoline, and smiled. “Go ahead.”

“And I… what?”

“Set yourself on fire.”

“You already did that for me.”

“Are you afraid?” Jude crossed her arms, glaring as Basira stood over the same pyre she’d been burnt at months ago.

“Never was.” And with that, Basira doused herself in the gasoline, and flicked the lighter only once.

Once was enough, and she burst into a haze of color. 

It  _ hurt.  _ It hurt more than anything, even more then when she had been forcibly sacrificed to the fire, it hurt more when it was coming from within, and her very soul burned off along with her skin. She forced herself to breath, one, two, three breaths inhaling no oxygen, nothing, simply pure flame. 

She fell to the ground as her legs turned to wax, and terror caught in her throat as she remembered how Daisy had died, from a bullet and the fire, and she felt it eat away her real skin.

She forced the fear down. 

She became what she loathed, as she dared the flames to ignite around everything she ever cared about, everything she ever  _ was.  _

And it did, and she was reborn, and she didn’t feel a thing. 

“Good,” said Jude. “I didn’t think you’d live through that.”

“I’m nothing if not stubborn. We had a deal?”

Jude subtly lifted a finger to her lips. “Not here.”

Basira nodded, almost imperceptibly. Then she whirled around, and punched Jude in the stomach, wax shifting around both of them. “I’ve wanted to do that for a very long time,” she said. 

Jude smirked. “You’ll fit right in.”

\----

Tim wasn’t stupid. He’d had a therapist before everything, he’d been taking his antidepressants daily, and he’d worked very hard to dig himself out of the hole he used to be in. After Danny died. 

Tim knew how trauma worked, he knew how depression worked, he understood on some level that he was in a bad place indeed. 

Knowing about something doesn’t make you an expert at dealing with it. 

Tim knew that he should have been seeing his therapist weekly like he had been  _ before  _ the worms, that he really should get his prescription renewed, and logically, he knew that he was worth something, that he was depressed, that he was suicidal, and that he couldn’t help himself unless he took charge. 

It just…  _ hurt,  _ was all. 

It was the pain and the trauma speaking when his brain told him he only mattered when he was helping people, and it was the years of counseling speaking when a tiny voice in his head told him that he got angry when depressed. 

It was so much easier to listen to Peter, because that wasn’t selfish, because he was saving the world, and after all, what mattered more, himself or the world? Just a logical decision, really. 

A logical decision that left him angry and upset and hurting in all the same ways he remembered. 

He pushed the thought out of his head, and picked up another statement as the fog swirled around his ankles. 

Peter would be so proud. 

\---

With Jon back, Melanie didn’t know what to do. Protection wasn’t needed, since Basira could handle herself, and Jon could compel. He and Martin had each other. Tim didn’t want anything to do with anyone, and she’d pissed Sasha off bad enough that she wasn’t going near the yellow doors anytime soon. 

She looked down at her leg, and saw festering red mold. She knew what she had to do. 

Once, the bullet had been good, she thought. Once, it had protected her, and those she cared about. Once, she had been able to use that anger, and she had  _ liked  _ the way it burned into her soul like a dead weight. 

Not anymore. Now, it was exactly what it looked like: A smear of infection, slowly eating her from the inside. But there was one thing left before she pulled it out. 

\----

“Elias.”

“Hello, Melanie. I wasn’t expecting you so soon.”

She didn’t respond to him. Instead, she pulled out a piece of duct tape and taped his mouth shut. Then she held a dagger up to his eyeballs. “How do I quit the institute?”

“mmmmrgh.”

She shoved a notebook in front of him, never letting go of her grip on him. “Write it down, you bastard.”

_ You don’t. _

“I bloody well  _ do,  _ or you die!”

_ It’s not possible to quit the institute. You tied yourself to it, and it can’t be undone. _

“Mmm. I suppose one of these will have to go, then. What do you think, do you want your left or right eye to go first?”

She pulled out her knife, and got it ready to plunge deep into the matter of his eyes. That was where she made her fatal mistake, for as she stared into the glint of his eyeballs, the flashed back at her, reflections of what she’d given up, and of her pain that ever persisted. 

Melanie dropped him with horror, and kicked Elias in the ribs, sending him coughing and sprawling into the side of the wall. “New plan,” she snarled. “I’ll slit your throat, then both eyes get smashed under the soles of my shoes.”

She dragged him up to face her, and stuck another piece of tape over his eyes. “Wanna answer me for real this time?”

Elias didn’t move, so she brought the tip of her knife closer to his throat, relishing as blood oozed out of the cut she made. “Just one person,” she said.”I get to quit, and then I leave your institute alone. Or, you die, and we destroy the institute.”

_ If I die, you die too. _

Melanie almost laughed. Almost. “Not me,” she said. “I've got this bullet wedged far too deep. You said yourself, Jon is strong enough that he could withstand the break, and whatever Basira’s entwined in, it’s nothing to do with you. Tim stuck himself so deep in the lonely that you can’t hurt him, and I’m fairly certain that it’s only the archive crew that would die along with you. So what’s stopping me?

_ Martin.  _

“But is he tied to you? Is he really connected to you, after all those months in a coffin, or would he, like Jon, be strong enough to withstand it. Because Martin works for  _ Jon,  _ not for you.

_ Is that a risk you’re willing to take? _

Melanie looked down at him and smiled. “Yes.” And with that, she slowly started to twist the double bladed dagger into his Adams apple. 

He started scribbling frantically, motioning and begging for her to stop. She did. 

“What is it?”

_ If you take out your own eyes- I can’t watch you. You won’t be tied to the institute anymore. _

Melanie withdrew her knife from his throat. “Good.”

And the knife went into a different set of eyes than it had been intended for as Melanie screamed. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tws: fire, burning alive, depression, suicidal thoughts, gore, eye gore, attempted murder.


	53. An Unwatcher

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Melanie deals with the aftermath, Basira hangs with bad company.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey y'all! I'd read the content warnings for this chapter, it's a little bit heavier then some of the others, since it deals with some real-world shit.

Everything was a blur after that, sirens and screaming and hands prodding at her, asking Melanie meaningless questions.

Voices swirled above her, discussing something, discussing suicide, and friendships, and the possibility that her scars would heal, that anything else was damaged in her body as she lay on the cot, breathing shallowly. 

The only thing really clear was when Georgie came into the room. A hand took hold of hers and told her over and over again, softly and kindly that it was okay. 

Melanie sat up. “I had to do this,” she said. 

Silence. “I can’t read your facial expressions anymore,” said Melanie. 

“Right! Umm… why did you…?” She paused, thinking over her use of motions. “I mean, why did you have to?”

“Turns out it’s the only way to unbind yourself from the institute.”

“I’m sure that breaks some sort of labor law.”

“So what? I go up to Elias and say ‘Hey, you can’t keep us here, it’s breaking clause 76 of whatever rulebook accounts for workers?’”

Georgie snorted. “So this wasn’t some kind of…” She waved her hands, then put them down.”I mean, some sort of suicide thing?” 

“No,” said Melanie. 

Georgie paused. “I’m glad you got out.”

Melanie felt anger bubble up in her. “Stop treating me like I  _ died,”  _ she said. 

“What?”

“Like  _ this-” _ She pointed at her eyes- “Was some sort of noble sacrifice!”

“But wasn’t it?”

“No! It was for me, and I’m  _ glad  _ they’re gone. Means Elias can’t use me like a pair of glasses anymore.”

“I don’t understand.”

Melanie covered her mouth with her hands. “Right. Nobody told you, but Elias can see out of any eyes, real or not.”

Georgie was silent. “That’s something,” she finally said. 

“It sure is.” 

And that was when Melanie's therapist walked in. 

Melanie heard only the creak of a door, and then Georgie was on her feet. “Hello?”

“I’m Emily Rochester. Melanie’s mental health professional,” she said in explanation. 

“My doctor,” Melanie supplied. “You’re here because of the eyes?”

There was the squeak of a chair, and it sounded as if Emily had sat down. “Can you give us a moment alone?”

The sound of another door, and Georgie’s reassuring presence was gone. 

“Hi Melanie. I understand that this is a very difficult time for you right now, but if you’re up to it, I’d like to talk a little bit.”

“Shoot,” said Melanie. 

“Well, first off, you probably shouldn’t live alone right now. I understand that it feels like everybody here is treating you like-”

“No,” said Melanie. “I gouged out my eyes, and logically, nobody knows why. It’s annoying.”

“Ye-es.” said Emily. “I’m sorry about that. Unfortunately, you’re on high watch right now, and I actually have a list of places I feel like would be best for you right now, in regards to your mental-”

“Can I just live with Georgie?”

There was silence. 

“Remember,” said Melanie. “I can’t read facial expressions. And I’ll probably move in with her anyway after all of this calms down.”

“Do you think she’s up for the challenge?”

“The challenge?” Melanie sat up straighter. “You mean the challenge of living with her girlfriend, something that we’ve been talking about for months? The challenge of- of-” She broke off. “I’m not a burden. And I’m not helpless, either.” 

“I was never insinuating that you were-”

“Yes. That’s exactly what you were saying.”

A deep breath. 

“If you’re trying to convey something right now, again, I can’t read facial expressions. 

“I just think that this is going to be a very hard adjustment, for both you and-”

“Fine,” said Melanie. “Ask Georgie if she thinks I’m going to slow her down, and if she says she doesn’t want me around anymore, I’ll go to your bullshit institution.”

The door opened again, and Melanie heard Georgie and her doctor speaking softly. Then, it got louder as Georgie began to raise her voice as the doctor tried to get a word in edgewise. 

Melanie smiled to herself. Trust Georgie to make sure nothing bad happened. 

\---

Punching Jude in the stomach didn’t hurt either of them, with bodies made of wax and hands sinking into flesh, but it felt damn good as Basira wedged her hands into intestines that didn’t exist. 

It felt less good as Jude retaliated, slamming her hands around Basiras throat. 

Of course, it was futile for both of them, wax melting into wax as they scuffled. Really, the only purpose was to hit each other, and for Basira, to finally be on equal ground.

So when the rest of the congregation left the church, bored of the show of strength, Basira and Jude finally rested. “My part of the deal,” Basira said. 

“What?” Jude laughed. “What do you need me for now?”

“You promised- to- to help me!” Basira said, outraged. 

“So I repeat: What help do you need?”

Basira’s hands burst into flames. “Two of us are better than one. And you made a  _ promise.”  _

“Did anyone tell you I was an awful liar?”

Basira loaded her gun. 

“Oh honestly.” Jude rolled her eyes. “Maybe you could have killed me before you became part of me. I guess there’s a group of monsters you have to leave alone now.”

“No.”

“ _ No?  _ You can’t decide-”

“I mean  _ no,  _ you're going to help me.”

Jude wrinkled her nose. “Why?”

“Because my mission involved a lot of killing people, and a lot of burning, and those are two things you enjoy.”

“So what? You think I’ll help you because of  _ that?” _

“Yes.”

Jude threw back her head and laughed, a deep guffaw that startled Basira. “Alright,” said Jude. “You’ve got me. Where to first?”

Basira blinked. “Really?”

“Yeah. It’s fun to mess with you. You make it  _ so  _ easy.”

“Well then,” Basira said. “Who should die first?”

“Names?”

Basira looked upwards and started counting on her fingers. “Jared Hopworth, NotRosie, Manuela Dominguez, Breekon and Hope, Arthur Nolan, Oliver Banks, Peter Lukas, and Annabelle Cane.”

“Seriously?”

“What?”

“Are you sure you covered all your bases? And why on earth is  _ Oliver  _ of all people on that list?”

“I picked out the avatars that we know of. The ones that appear in the statements.”

“I was on the list, right?”

Basira nodded. “Of  _ course  _ you were. I can’t think of anybody else that’s caused me as much trouble.”

“Thanks.”

“Don’t make me hit you again.”

Jude ignored the provocations. “Where are Helen and Sasha? And Elias?”

“They would have seen the list,” said Basira. “They couldn’t know I was planning their murder.”

Jude stared straight into Basira’s eyes. “I’m still on the list.”

“Yes.”

“So long as we’re on the same page.”

“Good,” said Basira. “Now. Who are we going to start with?”

Jude contemplated. “Breekon and Hope,” she said. “I’ll enjoy watching them burn.”

Basira nodded. “Where to?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tws: suicide mention, ableism, bad therapists, violence, unhealthy relationships (platonic)  
> So to be honest, I'm hardly in the TMA fandom at all, so I figure I'll finish this fic since I just have to polish it up, and then I have one other TMA thing to finish, but I'm not really into it at all. The real problem is that I keep forgetting I need to post a chapter of it. There are only five chapters left, so I'm gonna try and have it all up before January ends. Hopefully I'll update every couple of days.


	54. Lonely

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An expedition to the Lonely, a heart to heart.

“Hello!”

Tim glanced up from the statement he was working with. “Peter.” 

“I have something to show you.”

Tim closed the yellow manilla envelope with a sigh. “More useless statements that won’t actually serve any purpose? Or are you going to send me off with Simon again?”

“Simon’s dead, actually.”

“What?”

“I mean, I assume so. There was some blood on the floor and I never saw him again.”

“Did you check?”

Peter wrinkled his nose. “Why would I do that?”

Tim sighed again. “Make it quick.” 

“Of course.”

\----

Jon heard a knock on his door right as he pulled out another statement. Glancing down at the recorder, he clicked it off. It clicked right back on again. 

“Martin?”

“Yeah- sorry, were you doing a statement?”

“Yes- well, it’s ok, I mean. I have other things to work on.”

“I can leave,” said Martin. He took a deep breath, and it caught in his throat. “The archives are just so- so  _ small.” _

“Yes,” said Jon. “I don’t ever want to revisit the tunnels.”

“Sometimes,” said Martin, “Sometimes- it feels like I’m back inside the tunnels, just waiting for the mud to come back.” He laughed, slightly hysterically. ‘And sometimes- sometimes the canes-” he gestured with the metal crutches as they  _ ting _ ed against each other- “They hit the wall, and it’s  _ stupid,  _ but I’m back in that  _ place,  _ and they’re just an extension of me, trapping me. It’s- I’m- Like I’m too big to be here, and if I notice it, the walls begin to compress.”

“Do you- do you want a hug?” Jon felt stupid even asking, with his inability to deal with this, stupid person, stupid man who didn’t even feel the empathy of others, who had compressed a situation, who hadn’t even considered Martin. 

Only he had. He just hadn’t done it  _ right,  _ and now- now something was wrong and he didn’t have time to go through the options because people were so  _ damn  _ difficult. 

“No!”

“Oh- I’m -I’m sorry?”

“No, I mean, because it’s already too small.”

Jon stood. 

“Do you want to take a walk?”

“But-” said Jon. “But your legs-”

“Just outside. I can’t be in the archives anymore. Not right now.”

“Alright.”

\---

Tim followed Peter as the two of them walked down from the private floors, down from the library, into the lobby where Peter resolutely refused to make eye contact, and down further, until they were standing in the archives.

“Empty,” said Tim. 

“One more level,” said Peter. 

Tim followed. 

\---

Jon and Martin were very much enjoying their break when the door appeared. 

“You need to follow me,” said Sasha. 

“Where’s Helen?”

“Helping Melanie. Follow me.”

Jon looked at Martin. 

“If this is a trick,” said Martin, and shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“Are we coming?”

Sasha sighed, and slumped against the side of her door, sounds like claws on a chalkboard emitting. “We don’t have  _ time  _ for your mistrust. Either believe me  _ now,  _ or don’t bother. She motioned to her door. “Come on.”

They stepped into the door. 

Every time Jon had joined Sasha in the distortion, it had been mind-numbingly painful, with color swirls and falling, and everything painful surrounding him, reality and unreality melding together. 

This time, it was a straight path, walls of yellow and absolutely nothing in their way. Sasha led the way, her boots thumping on the floor, commanding them to follow. Isn’t it strange when somebody becomes something new, what minute and unimportant details stick? 

Jon put it out of his head. There was something more important, as Sasha thrust them out of the door. 

“Now what?” he asked. 

“Now, we wait,” she said. “Helen taught me, when we first became us, that timing was the most important part of whatever we choose to do.” She paused. “Whatever you do, don’t open the door.”

“What door?”

A ghostly grim smile on a barely real face. “Any of them.”

\---

Tim followed Peter through the winding black tunnels, unaware of where they would end up. There were two benefits to watching another man's back: He was your shield, and you could pull a knife on him. 

“The tunnels move,” Tim said. “How do we know we’re going in the right direction”

“Don’t worry!” said Peter. “I have this.” He raised a book, bloodstained and ancient. 

Tim squinted. “Is that a Leitner?” 

“Yes!”

“The blood?”

“That’s Leitner too! This book moves the tunnels around, so we’ll never lose our way.” He creaked the book open, and dirt fell as the tunnels ground their way open.

Tim tried not to panic as the tunnels wound deeper, somewhere there wasn’t meant to be man made structures. The echoes added up, and the darkness crawled along every corner, but the watching never ceased. 

“Peter,” said Tim. “Where are we going?”

Peter grinned, his eyes reflecting off the walls. “Almost there.”

Tim stopped. “No. Where are we going?”

“Tim. Can you just trust me?”

“No. I haven’t trusted you since day one, in fact. So either you tell me exactly where we plan to end up, or I don’t take another step. 

Peter cast his eyes downward, fog swirling at their feet. “Are you familiar with a panopticon?”

“Pan,” said Tim. “All. Optica, or eye. Seeing. All seeing. Sasha taught me that.”

“Very good! Now, in order to stop the extinction, we need to be at the panopticon.” Peter looked back at Tim. “So that’s where we’re going.”

Tim glared. 

“Now,” said Peter, “Are you going to help me? Or are you going to sit here? Alone. Lost. Unwanted.”

“I’m coming,” said Tim. 

\---

“Is that Tim?”

“ _ Shhh.” _

Jon turned. “Where did Sasha go? What is she doing.”

Martin blinked, then opened his mouth, and closed it again. “Was this a trap?” He reached out for the door, and Jon caught his wrist. “Don’t open the door.”

“Right.”

Jon leaned, pressing his ear against the door. “Yeah, that’s Tim.”

“What’s Peter saying?”

“Shh- I’m listening.”

_ -Why do you need me? _

_ Without a connection to the eye, my attempts to use it would be very messy indeed.  _

_ So you wanted me because I was already an assistant.  _

_ You must admit you  _ are  _ the perfect candidate.  _

_ I’m the perfect candidate for a lot of things.  _

Jon pulled his ear back from the door. “He’s talking to Peter.”

“Well, I caught that. What’s he saying?”

“To stop the extinction, he needs Tim. Tim can do it because he’s affiliated with the lonely and the eye but-” Jon pressed his ear back to the door. 

“But what?”

“I'm figuring it out, give me a minute...”

_ -I have to kill him. _

A breath caught in Jon’s throat as he reported back to Martin. “Tim has to kill someone in order to do what Peter wants.”

“Can we open the door?”

“Not yet. Let me listen.”

_ -where are his eyes?  _

_ Exactly where they’ve always been. Watching over  _ my  _ institute.  _

“It’s Elias.”

”We have to help him!”

“No.” Jon took Martin's hand again. “We have to wait.”

_ -You.  _

_ Yes, Tim. Peter wants you to kill me, but he’s not telling you the whole truth. _

_ Like  _ you _ ever have? _

_ If you replace me, everyone dies. Jon, Martin, Melanie, Basira, all of them.  _

_ I don’t believe you.  _

“Now,” said Jon.

Martin opened the door. 

“But even if I did,” continued Tim, “Darkness and loneliness are very similar. You think you can play me?” He rested his eyes on Peter. “I was never really working for you. You wanted me to be unseen, and so I was.” Tendrils of darkness swirled on the floor as if they were sentient, overtaking the fog. Tim stared at Jon and Martin, his eyes swirling as much as the floor. 

“I’m not connected to the institute anymore,” he said. “Manuela cured me of that. “So now, Peter-” 

And he was gone. 

“Tim? Where did you take him?”

Peter shrugged, looking pleased with himself. 

“ _ Where did you take him.” _

“Wherever he is, you can’t get him back.”

“Yes,” said Jon. “I can.” 

\---

The only constant in the world is Martin, Jon thought. And even that began to slip away. 

Darkness and sadness, pain and pride, unseen and hidden all mixed in this place. The two of them, colliding sharply on the dewy wet ground. Martin gripped Jon’s hand tighter, darking the world to take them away. 

“Tim?  _ Tim?” _

“Wherever he is,” said Martin, “He’s hidden.”

_ You think you can find him? You think he’ll appear for you? _

“Peter,” said Martin. “It kind of defeats the illusion of loneliness when you know he’s watching you. Which way do we go?”

“Which way,” said Jon. “Which direction does the sun set in?”

Martin shrugged. 

“Well,” said Jon, “The sun will set eventually.”

“And until then?”

“I don’t know.” 

\---

Tim wasn’t  _ real.  _ Or more likely, he wasn’t supposed to be. Evaporating with the dew, watching as he lost his fine motor movement to the whims of poisonous fog. 

It was a field, something Tim used to like, when he went hiking with Danny. 

Danny was the one that liked walking in the woods, enjoyed not knowing what was coming. Tim enjoyed the vast expanses of green, or yellow, watching as the sun set in the distance. 

A sacrifice. 

He wasn’t allowed to live in daylight, and fully fledged, he was more like Mauela than he wanted to admit. He understood the need for a ritual, not to cause pain, but for joy. If only. If only the world could see the fear he lived without as they dwelt in their boxes of security. If only it wasn’t evaporating him. 

Running wouldn’t bring him solace, and neither would shadow. Panic encircled him as he threatened to disappear, floating like a wraith over the prairie. 

It wouldn’t get better, would it? 

\---

“Jon, the sun is setting.”

“Well observed.”

“Oh come  _ on.  _ Don’t be patronizing.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You’re smiling.”

“So are you.”

Martin paused to lightly whack Jon on the shoulder. “You know,” he said, “This has got to be a great way to keep the lonely from getting to us.”

“Very well,” said Jon. “I guess I’ve got to continue making fun of you.” He smiled. “Noble cause and all that.”

Martin rolled his eyes. “Are we getting closer to Tim?”

“I don’t  _ know.  _ Everything here- it’s hidden from me.” He has to  _ want  _ to leave.”

“And he doesn’t.”

Jon closed his eyes. “Not enough, no.”

“Will he ever?”

Jon laughed, short and breathy. “I hope so- I really do.”

“How long will we stay here, then?”

“I don’t know.”

“Okay.” Martin took a deep breath. “Okay. He’ll want to come back, eventually.”

“Maybe,” said Jon, “When it gets dark, he’ll try to find us.”

“It is dark.”

“I guess we wait, then.”

\---

The setting sun was only a small fragment of peace in the swirling loneliness, but it might have been enough. Tim thought about it. He sat down on the wet ground, darkness coating him as he thought.

Did he want to return? 

Yes. Not for anybody, but because revenge and spite had always motivated him, and they would continue to. 

He hadn’t joined the institute because he liked paranormal research, after all. He had joined it to hurt someone else. Tim let the darkness envelop him, draw him in, coat him. Nothing. 

Naivety, that’s what it was, he thought. And then: “Maybe I won’t leave if it includes another. After all, who do I have in this world?”

Words, calling out to him.

Tim opened his darkness. Jon and Martin were wandering, in tandem with him, and all the anger he used to have stored recreated itself. 

“Jon,” he said, and Tim was standing in front of him. Tim had a million things to say, but he only choked out one of them. “Why?”

Blank stares. 

“Why?” he elaborated. “Why are you here, why do you have to mess with everything I do, why do you assume you know better, why do  _ you  _ get to be happy?” He felt tears run down his cheeks, but he ignored them. “Why do you get to be the savior? Why do you do  _ everything  _ right? Just- why do I have to be unseen and you’re the bloody  _ christ?” _

“I’m… sorry?”

“No!” screamed Tim. “You don’t have anything to be sorry for, that’s what I hate about it. Jon, who always knows what to do, who has people that care about him, that always makes the right decisions, why do you get to be loved? Why do you get to be  _ right _ ?”

“Do you want me to name off everything he’s done wrong?” asked Martin. “Because the list goes on for a very long time.”

Tim looked at Martin. 

“He cut his finger off,” said Martin. 

“To be fair, Melanie cut it off for me.”

“You still only have nine fingers,” said Martin, and looked back at Tim. “Why do you want to stay here?”

“Because- because” Tim buried his face in his hands. “Because I have nothing in the real world to hold me there. Because I do far more harm than good, and I don’t really deserve to be alive, do I?”

“Does it matter?”

Tim looked up at Martin. 

“So you don’t deserve to be alive. Do you think any of us do? We all just drew straws and some died, and some didn’t. It wasn’t about  _ deserving  _ it. If everybody that deserved to die did, the world would be pretty empty.” 

Tim looked up. “Why? Why care about me?”

“Because,” said Martin, “I care about everyone.That’s not bragging, it’s simply the truth. I care about everyone because I’m too damn guilty not to.” Martin caught the stunned look on Tim’s face. “You’re a  _ person,  _ Tim. That means something.” He held out his hand. “If you can’t do it because people care about you, can you at least do it because we haven’t gotten our chance to kill Elias yet?”

Tim put his hand in Martins. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tws: Suicidal ideation, guilt


	55. A firefight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Basira reaches a kind of climax. Jude is excited. Melanie makes a good decision. Helen fucks around.

Basira never thought that she would be on the underground with Jude Perry, watching the metal rails steam as nobody else seemed to notice. 

Then again, Basira didn’t think she’d end up on a revenge quest for Daisy, made of wax and traveling with a woman she loathed. 

“Where did you say they were?” she asked.

“Relax,” said Jude. “What’s the point of killing someone if you don’t even get to enjoy it?”

“Lots of reasons,” said Basira. “Most of them start with not being a sadist.”

“Isn’t it tiring being so  _ moral  _ all the time?”

“I don’t know. I think it’s rather nice.”

“ _ Why? _ ”

Basira thought. “It means you aren’t the monster.”

Jude actually doubled over at that. “You mean you still think you  _ aren’t  _ the monster?”

Basira was silent. 

“You’re working with a cult to murder anybody that annoyed you.  _ Yeah,  _ you’re the monster.”

“I’m not a  _ sadist  _ though. Not like you.”

“Not yet.” 

\---

Basira felt electric as they stepped off the subway. Finally, something to look forward to. She put the previous conversation out of her mind. It didn’t matter what she was, so long as the world had a net gain. So long as the world got better, she didn’t have to be pure. And so long as she was making the world better, her actions weren’t bad. 

She felt excited, and the guilt was only a nagging feeling behind her chest. So easy to squash completely. 

“Hey,” said Jude, bringing Basira back to herself. “They’re this way.”

“How do you know?”

“They work there, dipshit.”

“Right,” said Basira. And you’re sure they can be burnt to death?”

“If they can’t, then there’s no danger to us either. Besides, they’re just Breekon and Hope. They can burn.” Jude glanced down at Basiras hand, holding a gun. “That thing won’t help you, idiot. You got lucky with the Fairchilds, and your safety blanket doesn’t have to be there anymore.”

“It’s not my safety blanket.”

”Then what is it?” Jude paused. “That’s what I thought.”

“Just go in.”

“What?” said Jude. “Don’t you want to do the dramatic reveal? Or are you scared?”

Basira grabbed the door handle, not caring the way that her hands melted into Jude’s as they collided. With a twist, the door handle was burnt into an unrecognizable shape, scalded and scorching as she let go. 

“Great,” said Jude. “How are we supposed to get in now?”

Basira lifted her fingers and, one by one, burnt the hinges of the door, and pushed. It fell inward with a boom, inward into a dark, greasy taxidermy shop.

“This place seems like it will burn,” said Basira. “Where are they?”

“Us?”

Basira snapped her fingers, sparks exploding. “ _ There  _ they are. Are you ready to burn?”

“What-” said the one called Breekon. There was real fear in his voice, and Basira relished the way that his terror strengthened her. 

“That’s right,” said Basira. “Do you know why I want to burn you?”

“Haven’t got a clue,” said the one called Hope. 

“That’s because,” said Basira, ambling across the room as if she had not a care in the world, “There is no reason. You exist, and you aren’t human, and that’s enough for me. You deserve to die.”

With that, she set the fire. 

As she closed her eyes to listen to the screams that she had become so accustomed to, they didn’t come. Instead, words assaulted her ears.

“You aren’t- You aren’t better,” said the one called Breekon. 

“At least we have each other,” said the one called Hope, choking on his own breath. “Who do you have?”

“What makes- what-” wheezed the one called Breekon- “What makes you human any more than we are?”

“What makes you the savior?”

Rage flashed in front of her eyes, and she kicked Breekon roughly in the ribs. “Shut up.”

“I’m not wrong,” he said. “You’re as much of a monster as us.”

She raised her boot, and crushed his skull underfoot. Then, she strode towards Hope, grabbing his hair in her hands and yanking him upwards. “You,” she said. “Anything left to say?”

He spat a stream of blood and spittle at her, and then went limp. “Nothing you haven’t heard,” he said. 

She dropped him, half disgusted with herself, half pleased, and wholey unremorseful.

Jude stood at the corner of the room, arms crossed. “I’m impressed,” she said.

“Shut up,” said Basira. “I don’t care.”

“You should.”

Basira felt anger growing inside of her again. “I’m not doing this because I want to. I have to. I’m doing this because it’s something that needs to be done, and I can do it.”

“Self denial can go a long way, can’t it?”

“I said  _ shut up. _ ”

“Try and make me,” said Jude. 

Fire flashed in Basira’s eyes. “Don’t test me,” she said. “We’re on equal footing.”

Jude scoffed. “No we aren’t. Because  _ you’re  _ still stuck pretending you’re not the evil one.”

Basira whirled around, and punched Jude in the face.

“You should know that doesn’t work,” said Jude, now openly smiling. 

Basira pulled out her gun and empted the entire clip into Jude, right between her eyes. Jude fell to the ground, her wax scorching the puddles into steam. 

“You can’t kill me,” she said. 

‘It feels damn good to try.”

Jude let out a low whistle as she stood. “Now that that’s out of the way, who’s next?”

Basira paused. “We rest,” she said. “Then, we visit the institute.”

\---

Georgie stood over Melanie, kitchen knife in hand. “You’re sure this has to be done?” she asked.

“Positive,” said Melanie. 

“We can’t go to the hospital after this,” said Georgie. “They’ll for sure send you away if we do.”

“We could always blame Elias,” Melanie said. “He’s shot me once already.”

Georgie laughed, more out of anxiety than anything else. “Ready?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be,” said Melanie, and Geogie raised the knife. 

Helen sighed. “You didn’t think to ask the gal with knives for hands for help?”

The knife fell to the floor with a clatter, and Georgie whipped around. ‘Don’t  _ do  _ that!”

“What?”

“Appear! You  _ know  _ how much I hate it.”

“Besides,” said Melanie,”You threw me into your door for days, then tortured me. Why on earth would I trust you to dig the bullet out of my leg?”

“It would be fun?” asked Helen. “Or maybe, you just have no better options.”

Melanie glared. “Fine.”

“Fine what?”

“Fine, you can dig into my leg with your knife hands to pull out the bullet.”

“Good! Consent is important, you know.”

Melanie groaned. “Just get the bloody bullet out of my leg.”

Helen dug her fingers into Melanie’s leg, and Melanie shrieked.

It felt like expired painkillers. It felt like a dull knife in the back of a shed at camp. It felt like too much all at once, it felt like a fever dream. 

And then Helens hands were out of her leg, fingering a shiny silver bullet, coated in blood.

“Do you want to keep this?” Helen asked. “Spoils of war, and all that?”

Get rid of it,” Melanie spat out. “I don’t need to see that  _ thing  _ anymore.”

“Your choice,” Helen said, popping the bullet in her mouth and crunching. “But I hope you’re happy, because you’re also helpless.”

“I have not,” said Melanie, “Nor have I ever been  _ helpless.  _ I worked my ass off to get where I am, and then I worked my ass off to get out of the places that I was in. I’m not helpless.”

“But are you going to be protected?” asked Helen. “You live in the world of demigods, so you aren’t powerful, no matter how you pretend.”

Melanie set her jaw and stared directly at Helen. “I’ve faced my greatest fear.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tws: sadism, antagonistic relationships, burning alive, body horror, gaslighting.


	56. A return

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tim, Martin, and Jon return from the lonely. Melanie stands up to the spiral. Jude and Basira travel to the institute.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, I'm almost done with my first full length fic, which is crazy to me.

Returning to the world was a sickening affair. It was like peace was a rug being pulled out from under them, and all three of them, dull, and angry, were standing in front of Elias and Peter. Peter startled when he saw them, then cast his eyes downward. Elias just looked very, very smug. 

“I suppose he’s mine, then?” asked Elias.

“I suppose he is,” said Peter, shuffling his feet. 

“What-” the three of them asked in tandem. 

‘Elias can do what he wants with you now,” said Peter. “Have fun, I suppose.”

“No,” said Jon. “What is it! What will he do with us? What  _ are you? _ ”

Questions asked in quick succession, questions unanswered as Peter got paler and paler. “Ask Elias,” he begged. “I was only part of the bet.”

Jon rested his eyes on Peter again. “Bet?”

“Elias can answer your questions!”

Tim put his hand on Jons shoulder, forcing his eyes away from Peter. 

“Elias,” said Jon. “What. Is. This.”

Elias smiled, the smile of a man who knows he’s played his cards right. “I can do whatever I want with you. It’s simple.”

“And what is that?”

Elias closed his eyes. “You’re going to be the  _ perfect  _ archivist.”

\---

“This is the institute?” asked Jude.

“Shithole, isn’t it,” Basira replied. 

Jude chuckled. “I thought Elias would want to be a little bit more prestigious with where he puts his beloved archivist.”

“Like he cares.”

“Okay,” Jude said. “Where are we going?”

“Peter works here. I don’t know if he can die from us, but he seems like he’s one of the more human servants of fear. Ready?” 

“Question is, are you?” said Jude. 

With that, Basira creaked the trapdoor open. 

Jude groaned. “He’s no  _ fun.” _

“It’s not about  _ fun.”  _

“Really?” asked Jude. “You seem to be having a grand old time.”

“Well, I’m not.”

“You can’t lie to yourself forever.”

“I’m  _ not.” _

Jude sniffed. “Peter Lukas?”

“Third floor,” said Basira, and marched towards the stairs.

\---

Darkness grew at Tim’s feet. “Elias,” he said. “What are you doing?”

Elias grew pale. “I don’t have to answer you.”

“You will,” said Tim.

There was a pause as the two men stared at each other. Then, Elias spoke. 

“Timothy Stoker,” he said. “I release you from your contract with the institute, effective immediately. Please gather your things, and you will receive severance pay for the next two weeks. If you would like a recommendation from the institute in your search from a new job, do not hesitate to reach out. We wish you the best of luck in this new stretch of your life.

Tim blinked. “Did you just  _ fire me? _ ”

“Yes,” said Elias. “Isn’t that what you’ve wanted since the circus? Since  _ before  _ the circus. You haven’t wanted to be part of this for a very long time, and here’s your out.”

Tim sighed. “I hate this institute. Yeah, maybe I would have taken the out a week ago. Hell, I would have taken it ten minutes ago. But now-” and Elias could have sworn his eyes were growing darker- “I have friends here.”

Behind the confrontation, Peter turned around, his fog evaporating as he walked. “Elias.”

Elias whipped around. “ _ What,  _ Peter?”

“It’s getting warmer.”

“Tell me why, exactly, I should care?”

“It smells like smoke.”

Elias ran to where Peter was standing. “Fire,” he breathed out. Then louder. “Fire.”

“The institute?” asked Jon. 

Elias focused. “No. But close. Jude’s here.”

Jon tensed. “Jude Perry?” 

“Her,” said Elias. “It seems as if we’re on the same team again, Jon.”

Jon tightened his grip on Martin’s hand. “Why?”

Elias stared at Jon as if he was stupid. “We have to stop Jude, or we will  _ both  _ die.”

Sasha poked her head out of a door in the corner of the room. “Anybody need a door?”

The five of them filed through.

\---

Melanie,” said Helen. 

“I’m not part of the institute anymore,” Melanie snapped. 

“Why the anger? I thought we already pulled that bullet out?”

“I have a personality beyond whatever power wants me this time, you know.”

“I’m glad you have your personhood,” said Helen. “Now. Your friends are going to die.”

Melanie shot up off the couch. “You could have led with that! Is it the Magnus people? Because if they’re asking for me, I have no interest in helping them.”

Helen paused. “Well, they’re about to die.” 

Melanie sighed. “Figures. Tell me what happens, and leave me alone. I’m done with the institute.” 

Helen laughed. “Incidentally, so is Tim.”

“What?”

“He got fired.”

“You mean all this time, I could have just pissed Elias off enough to fire me?”

“Hmm. Hard to say, especially when you’ve already made your choice.”

“I have,” said Melanie, “Haven’t I.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tws: gaslighting


	57. An Inferno

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We reach the conclusion of the story.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter is really the happily-ever-after (or not) type thing, epilogue, whatever. So that's fun!

Seven people in the archives at once, all of them with power unmatched. 

The stuffy building seemed like so much more in the firelight and artificial darkness.

“What are you doing here, Jude?” asked Jon. 

“I brought her,” said Basira stepping out from behind a shelf. “We’re here to kill Peter.”

“Are we?”

Basira glared at Jude. “Yes.”

“But-” said Tim, grasping at words to describe the absurdity of the situation- “But she’s a murderer!”

“So is your precious Basira,” said Jude. “Simon.” She ticked off her fingers one by one. “Mike. The NotRosie. Breekon and Hope. And she was a murderer long before she met you.” Blank stares. Jude rolled her eyes. “Did you really think she was ever  _ good? _ She couldn’t have joined the cult of the lightless flame if she had ever cared.”

“Shut up,” said Basira, her hands balled into fists.

Jude ignored her. “She killed people, and then passed it off as self defense, like they always do. She wanted power, and that’s why she went along with anything Daisy said, and she was never out for justice. Justice and revenge really aren’t the same thing, no matter how much Basira likes to pretend.” Jude turned to directly face Basira. “Tell me, since I can’t see like Elias, how many people did you murder before you even got section thirty-oned?”

“No,” said Basira. “I’m not a murderer. I’m  _ not. _ ”

Jon only stared sadly at her. “There were three men on the side of the road, begging for money. Daisy thought they had drugs, and when they saw you were police, they got violent. You defended yourself, and it never got out to the public. The second time,” he continued, “Daisy was after a man that had been acquitted. She didn’t believe he was truly innocent, and so you kept watch as she took care of him. You pretended not to know what Daisy was doing. You pretended you weren’t an accomplice.”

“Shut up,” said Basira, her teeth scraping.

“You need to see, Basira.” said Jon. 

“I can do that on my own.” 

“No,” said Martin, stepping closer. “You really can’t.”

“Get out of my way, Martin.”

Martin stepped aside and Basira marched forward, flames in her eyes. “What,” she said. “Do any of you want to stop me from killing him?”

“I don’t mind if he goes,” said Tim.

“Seconded,” said Martin. 

Only Jon was silent. 

“Jon?” asked Basira. 

“No,” said Jon. “I don’t care if he dies. Be my guest.”

The fear in Peter’s eyes was unmistakable. As he looked around the room, there was nobody to cry to for help, so he shrunk back into the wall, fog curling at his ankles as he tried to reach the lonely. It didn’t work. Too much was in the room, too many eyes on him. 

Smoke curled around Basira, following in her wake. 

Peter ignited. 

The room froze as they watched him burn, lightning up as if he was already coated in gasoline. Bone, hair, coat, all of it went up in flames.

Peter didn’t scream, keeping his mouth closed for the entire ordeal. Even as his eyes burned out of their sockets and he was too weak to stand, he stood as if it was a kind of ending that he always knew he would have. And maybe he did. When Basira was done with him, all that was left on the floor were scorched bones in a pile.

Elias was the first to move, reaching forward to pick up the skull. “Well,” he said, “That is  _ certainly  _ something.”

Jon just gaped at the show of power.

The attention turned to Jude as she gasped, wheezing from laughter. “You’re not the monster, huh? Come on. You're doing exactly what I am, and you’re having  _ fun  _ with it.”

Basira would have punched Jude again, if only it would have done something. Instead, she opted for the most humiliating kind of pain, slapping Jude clear across the face. It was so unexpected, 

Jude fell to her knees. 

“You're going to  _ pay _ ,” she growled, and with that, the archives went up in flames.

\---

Jon fell to the ground as it began to burn, coughing and spitting as he lost his breath. Martin bent down to help him on instinct, and Tim stood to face Elias. 

But Elias wasn’t standing to face  _ Tim.  _

Just like Jon, Elias was bent on his knees, coughing up bloody goo. Unlike Jon, he didn’t have anybody that was holding his hair back, that was helping him or rubbing his back. 

Elias was left alone, dying alone and unwanted as he gasped out his last breaths. 

Tim stood and watched. Tim watched until he realized that it was  _ his  _ job to put the other man out of his misery. He nudged Elias with his foot, turning him to face the sky as he hacked up his lungs, and stepped on his windpipe. 

When Elias was dead, fully and truly, Tim reached into Elias’s eye sockets, feeling nothing but satisfaction as he pulled the eyes out. Squishing one in each fist, he threw them into the fire. 

\---

Basira and Jude were still fighting, their brawl engulfing the archives in thick smoke. 

Neither would die that day, Tim thought, and so he turned away, his eyes resting on Jon and Martin. 

“He’s not going to live,” Tim said. 

Martin looked up. “No! He’s stronger than Elias, he can-”

“He’s half dead already,” said Tim. “Sasha?”

Sasha appeared at his side, fingers like knives caressing Jon’s throat. 

“No,” said Martin, tears streaming down his face. “No, he can get through this-”

“I love you, Martin,” Jon said. “But no, I can’t. This is a mercy killing.” 

“Oh” Helen said. “If only.”

Tim stared. “What?”

“I can keep you alive,” said Helen. “You just have to read a statement.”

“Give me one,” said Tim, taking the paper and thrusting it in front of Jon’s face. 

“Statement of-” he coughed- “Hazel Rutter regarding a fire in her childhood home. Original recording given-” 

“Just read it,” said Helen impatiently. 

“Hello Jon. Apologies for the deception, but-” He looked up at Helen furiously, and she was unapologetically smiling. He gagged, and continued to read. “Statement of Jonah Magnus, regarding Jonathan Sims, the archivist.”

Martin tried to snatch the statement away, but Jon continued to recite the words blankly. 

“It’s killing him,” said Sasha furiously turning towards Helen.

Helen grinned. “It always was.”

“What?”

“He was always going to die, Sasha.” Helen said. “As soon as the archives began to burn, he was going to die.”

“What are you doing to him?” asked Sasha, tears in her eyes. 

“Finishing what Elias started. Or should I call him Jonah?” she mused. 

“I hope you will forgive me the self indulgence, but I have worked very hard for this moment, a culmination of two centuries of work-”

“We have to save him!” said Sasha, running forward. 

Helen put her arm out. “Sasha needed to save her. You don’t.”

“I  _ am  _ Sasha!”

Helen sighed. “I really did love you,” she said. “Helen Richardson loved you too, of course, but I always held out hope that you would be  _ us. _ ”

Sasha looked up at Helen. “What?

“-discovery, not simply of the dark and horrible reality-”

Helen smiled, all teeth and hands and cruelty.

“Sasha, you have to understand. It’ll be  _ better  _ for us this way. The world can be ours!”

“No,” said Sasha, tears streaming down her face. “No, it can’t be.”

Helen sighed. “Have it your way, then.”

A door appeared.

“- freedom of it all. I have dedicated my life to handing the world to these-”

Sasha stepped towards the door. Sasha stepped away from the door. Sasha dragged Jon through the door, still reciting the incantation, and they both screamed. 

“What did you do?” asked Martin. 

“ _ Sasha,  _ apparently, decided to save the world,” said Helen. “Everyone say thank you to the distortion!”

The world burned around them. “What would that statement do?” asked Tim. 

“Nothing, said Helen, too quickly. “We thought that it might help a little bit.”

“No, said Martin. “No.”

Helen rolled her eyes. “You caught me. I wanted to make Sasha happy, so I tried to restart the world. Isn’t that the definition of love? Reshaping the world for the one person that’s worth it?”

“You killed her,” said Tim. 

“She’s been dead for a long time,” said Helen. “Too much like Micheal. If she was around, she would  _ thank  _ me!”

“Jon?”

“He’s been dead for a long time, too,” said Helen. “You were right! Gold star for Tim, your boss’s been a monster the entire time.”

“You’re a lie,” said Martin quietly. 

“Throat of delusion incarnate and all that?” asked Helen. “I suppose I am. But that doesn’t mean you can’t  _ trust  _ me.”

“No,” said Martin. “He was still human. He was- he was  _ good.  _ You’re a liar.”

“Fine,” said Helen. “I suppose I am.” With that, she whirled her way back through the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tws: Police brutality, burning alive, eye horror, gaslighting.


	58. Apotheosis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A final conclusion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading, yall! This has been really fun to write, and if nothing else, my writing skills are at least improving with every piece I write!

The next few days were a blur. Police questions, Basira missing, Jon dead. Martin had offered him tea more times than he could count, and each time he numbly accepted. Helen hadn’t appeared again, and somehow that made him feel even more lonely. He couldn’t reach the darkness either, all his ties to the supernatural broken in one go. He shouldn’t, he thought, feel lonely anymore. He’d faced that demon, and that demon was nothing more than bones and ash in a burnt up cellar. 

This wasn’t supernatural loneliness. This was simply the kind you felt when you lost a friend, and Jon was indisputably dead. Somehow, that made it all worse. Like there was nothing he could do to fix it, and there wasn’t, really, because it was grief, pure and simple, grief for what he’d lost, and there was no way to fix it save time. Georgie, at least, had been consoling. He had stayed at her flat after everything, because he couldn’t stand to be alone anymore, and there was only one person who really understood it. 

Melanie had been accommodating as well, even as Tim refused to speak more than two words together. He couldn’t. He’d thought it was his trauma response at the beginning of the ordeal, refusing to even bring words to his lips. Then, he’d tried to talk, and all that came out was thin, rasping whispers. 

His voice was gone, this time for good.

\---

Basira wasn’t the same, she knew that. She would never return to the institute, and she was never going to return to the cult of the lightless flame, either. Fire wasn’t built to be a pack animal, so as she dug herself out of the rubble, she made her own plans. 

She would be a wanderer, a lost girl, someone on the streets people pretended not to see. She would watch people through her flames, and she would hunt them and destroy them. Dangers, problems, people that never should have existed in the first place, they were her prey. A broken woman, a damned woman, a woman made of flames, pretending. 

At least she could let go of at least one illusion. She would  _ never  _ be the hero of the story, never be the good one again. 

Her fire could burn those who deserved it, but the world was going to be very empty when those who didn’t deserve to live simply ceased. Her conscience was a shell burnt long ago, and so she embarked on her journey. To where, she didn’t know. How long she would travel, that was a mystery. What she would do on the way, that was crystal clear.

\---

Hey, thought Martin, at least the evil is defeated. 

Wasn’t that supposed to feel good? Wasn’t a victory just that- a victory? And now Jon was dead, burnt by the flames and along with the archives. Basira was gone too, and all that remained was himself and Tim. Melanie, perhaps, but she wasn’t the broken sort. 

So a happy ending wasn’t really an ending at all, and he guessed it was over. 

At least Elias was dead. 

\---

Georgie had been the one to prepare the funeral. Tim and Martin weren’t in a state to do anything, and so the responsibility fell to her, the only friend left not from the archives he had. 

She wasn’t afraid of what was coming next. she couldn’t be, the fear never permeated her and her decisions never wavered, but grief was an emotion that she still held in her heart. 

White lilies at his funeral, standing over a coffin that was a lie, through and through. Generic marble for his gravestone, and friends and family he had never cared about as they pretended to be sad. There was no wake. 

\---

All four of them that lived, and two that didn’t, had driven out to a spot in the woods where they would be alone. Tim had brought a blanket, and Martin had brought the picnic basket. 

Catharsis in one way, and acceptance in another. Four years since Jon died. Four years since everything had ended, and four years since they were all expected to be okay. 

Martin pulled out the sandwiches. “I got my degree,” he started. 

“Not in parapsychology, I hope,” said Georgie. 

Martin didn’t laugh. “I’m officially a children's librarian,” he said. “It’s nice. It’s… better.”

“Congratulations,” signed Tim, surprising himself with his sincerity. “I, um,-” he faltered in his signing slightly-“I’ve been renovating buildings. I moved, too. Couldn’t live anywhere near that place without remembering it.”

“Yeah,” said Martin. “Melanie?”

“What the ghost,” she said. “I’ve been working on it with Georgie. It’s nice to have a break.”

“Yeah,” Tim signed. “I don’t think I can go anywhere near ghosts or libraries anymore, but you know, maybe that’s just me.”

Georgie relayed it to Melanie, and she laughed. “Yeah. Somehow I don’t think I can ever leave that place behind for good.”

“To healing?” asked Georgie. 

“No,” signed Tim. “To saving the world.”

To saving the world, as the group sat in the woods, having a picnic and remembering the dead. To the fact that nobody would have to take their place for many, many years. To the life that they would now have. To everyone that was hurt. To peace, to an ending, to lives lived and lost and loved. To the world and the people that always deserve to live.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw ptsd.   
> I think my next project is going to be a retelling of the brothers grimm stories, I'm probably gonna start posting it sometime this week. It's ended up being a lot longer than this story, however, since each chapter has ended up being at least three times longer than the ones in this story. I'm excited! I think I'm slowly and surely getting better at writing!

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr is @eatgreass, and there is no update schedule, but I do have the first 17 chapters outlined.


End file.
